The months of January and March, a pair of pastoral groups with a fisherman and a woman warming her hands over a fire with children attending, circa 1740-1760

Simon Troger

Exhibited by Erik Bijzet Sculpture and Works of Art

Material ivory and snakewood, set with glass eyes

Dimensions 39.5 × 45 cm

Place of Creation German, Munich

Status Vetted

About the Work

The Tyrolean sculptor Simon Troger is widely regarded as having produced some of the most impressive and distinctive ivory and wood carvings of the eighteenth century, his famous Kombinationsgruppen. Troger trained in the workshop of Schmiedecker in Merano and worked under Nikolaus Moll in Innsbruck before settling in Munich around 1726, where he was first employed by Andreas Faistenberger and later set up his own workshop in nearby Haidhausen. Troger’s work is characterised by a lavish combination of ivory and snakewood, further enlivened with glass eyes and occasionally metal elements, to create representations of mythological and Christian subjects as well as a host of bucolic characters. Commissioned by noble patrons including the Electors of Bavaria, Saxony, and Brandenburg, Troger’s large groups appear in the collections of many European museums, including significant holdings in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum and the Hermitage.

These two large double figure groups appear to have formed part of a series representing the months of the year, a kind of three-dimensional calendarium that would have suited the noble Kunstkammers Troger furnished. A woman or man warming their hands at a fire typically signifies January and occasionally February, while February or March are months associated with fishing or with the astrological sign Pisces. We know of larger ensembles of groups by Troger that offer an idea of how such an ivory calendarium might have appeared. A set of conversing beggars in a Pennsylvanian private collection illustrated by Defrin consists of six separate but closely interacting groups. Other personifications of the months have not been identified within Troger’s oeuvre so the figures may represent a genre scene related to the fish cooking group in a private collection illustrated in Philippovich’ Elfenbein.

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Provenance

Private collection, Genova, until 2020.

Literature

RELATED LITERATURE
S. Defrin, ‘Recognizing the hand of Simon Troger (1683-1768)’, R. Marth and M. Trusted (eds.), Barocke Kunststückh. Festschrift für Christian Theuerkauff, Munich, 2011, pp. 178-184;
J. Kappel, Elfenbeinkunst im Grünen Gewölbe zu Dresden, Dresden, 2017;
E. von Philippovich, Simon Troger und andere Elfenbeinkünstler aus Tirol, Innsbruck, 1961; E. von Philippovich, “Kombinationsfiguren aus Elfenbein und Holz“, Kunst in Hessen und am Mittelrhein, vol. 17, 1977, pp. 27-35;
E. von Philippovich, Elfenbein, Munich, 1982;
A. Scherp, “Die Elfenbeinwerke von Simon Troger im Bayerischen Nationalmuseum“, R. Marth and M. Trusted (eds.), Barocke Kunststückh. Festschrift für Christian Theuerkauff, Munich, 2011, pp. 170-177.

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Erik Bijzet Sculpture and Works of Art

Simon Troger

The months of January and March, a pair of pastoral groups with a fisherman and a woman warming her hands over a fire with children attending, circa 1740-1760