Weilheim ca 1580 - 1633 München
Christ Child
1610-1620 , carved ivory
15,5 cm
Standing in contrapposto and arms opened, this Christ Child is presented as a little boy, naked with a slender torso and a mop of curly hair. The subtle modelling of the child’s body and the finely carved curls on his head reveal the extraordinarily high quality of this Mannerist sculpture in a small format. Apart from its charming appearance, being made of such valuable material and worked with consummate artistry ensured that this was a prime Kunstkammer object. That none other than the celebrated sculptor to the Munich court, Christof Angermair (after 1580–1633), was the maker of this statuette, is clearly evident when it is compared with Angermair’s masterpiece: the Coin Cabinet the artist made for Maximilian I of Bavaria from 1618 to 1624. Now displayed in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, this magnificent piece of furniture veneered with exquisite ivory reliefs on all façades boasts several naked little boys as the bearers of coats of arms or cartouches and, since all of them match the present statuette in composition and style, they were evidently made by the same artist as the Christ Child discussed here.
The Christ Child presented here is highly likely to have been an early work of Angermair’s, which means it dates to about 1610–1620. The close stylistic affinity with the sculpture on the Coin Cabinet, on which work began in 1618, is not the only factor supporting such an early date; there is also an invoice dated 4 March 1606, which indicates that the Archduchess Anna Caterina Gonzaga was billed 6 guilders by the artist for an ivory ‘Christ Child’ [‘Christlkind’]. Like her husband, Ferdinand II of the Tyrol, the Dowager Archduchess was an active collector, concentrating mainly on devotional art. Records show that she kept the ‘ivory Baby Jesus’ [‘elfenbeinerne Jesusknäblein’] in a room of her private apartments. The popularity of this statuette type in court circles is attested by two more ‘ivory Baby Jesus figures’ [‘elfenbeinerne Jesusknäblein’] exemplifying it that are held by the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and the Museum of Applied Arts in Prague. Both were probably made by an artist or artists in Angermair’s circle. The Christ Child studied here, however, differs from those works in the consummate virtuosity of execution that speaks so clearly of Christof Angermair’s peerless talent and led his most able contemporaries to declare openly that his work ‘was priceless’ [‘kinde also diese Arbeit mit Geld nit bezalt werden’].