A CARVED IVORY GROUP OF THE THREE GRACES
THE PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN 
A CARVED IVORY GROUP OF THE THREE GRACES

CIRCLE OF LEONHARD KERN (1588-1662), MID 17TH CENTURY

Details
A CARVED IVORY GROUP OF THE THREE GRACES
Circle of Leonhard Kern (1588-1662), mid 17th century
On an integrally carved ring with scalloped edges; the underside of the ring with an old inventory number' 838' and inscribed in ink 'F. Du Quenoy'; the underside also bearing an old label inscribed with an attribution to Kern.
Very minor cracks.
7 7/8 in. (20 cm.) high
Provenance
Ole Olsen, Copenhagen.
Literature
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE:
H. Schmitz, Ole Olsens Kunstsammlungen Kopenhagen, I, Munich, n.d., no. 838, pl. 79.
E. Grünenwald, Leonhard Kern - Ein Bildhauer des Barock, Schwäbisch Hall, 1969, p. 49.
H. Siebenmorgen ed., Leonhard Kern (1588-1662) - Neue Forschungen, Sigmaringen, 1990, pp. 38-74.

Lot Essay

In recent years, careful attempts have been made to differentiate between autograph works by Leonhard Kern, and the productions of his workshop and his followers, especially by Christian Theuerkauff in the wake of the Kern exhibition of 1988-1989 (Siebenmorgen, loc. cit.). The two crucial figures in this connection are his son, Johan Jakob Kern (1626-1668) and his nephew, Johan Georg Kern (1622-1698), but it is still too early to be absolutely confident about differentiating between the various hands involved.

In the case of the present group, the attribution to Leonhard Kern himself (Schmitz, loc. cit.) was rejected by Grünenwald in her monograph on the artist (Grünenwald, loc. cit.). It is certainly markedly different in character from the treatment of the same subject generally accepted as by Kern now in the Budapest Museum (Grünenwald, loc. cit., pl. 49), and this cannot simply be a matter of the difference between working in wood and ivory. In any event, the delicacy and the refinement of the carving reveal the hand of an extremely accomplished sculptor.

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