Lot 83
83
Property from the Estate of JOAN W. LEIDESDORF
A SET OF FOUR WAX RELIEFS

Details
A SET OF FOUR WAX RELIEFS
ATTRIBUTED TO BERNHARD CASPAR HARDY, GERMAN, LATE 18TH CENTURY

Each modelled three-quarters in the round and depicting four stages in a woman's life as represented by a little girl with a dog, a young woman with a flower and a mirror, a mother and infant, and an old woman reading a book, inset into glazed shadow boxes
8½in. x 6 5/8in. (21.5cm. x 17cm.) overall
(4)

Lot Essay

COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
E.J. Pyke, A Biographical Dictionary of Wax Modellers, 1973, pp. 63-65

Bernhard Caspar Hardy (1726-1819) specialized as a wax modeller in genre subjects such as the present examples. These figures, conceived in both colored and white waxes, were generally mounted against slate or glass. There is no record of his ever having signed his work.