Franz von Stuck (German, 1863-1928)

First conceived in 1897, Amazone is one of von Stuck's most celebrated sculptures and epitomizes the artist's fascination with the Neo-Classical at this stage in his career. Stuck first approached the subject of the Amazonian female warrior through several paintings circa 1897. After meticulous drafts and well-documented preparatory sketches, Stuck soon realised the full dramatic potential of his subject as a three-dimensional work of art, the idealised female subject successfully realized in the smooth, highly finished surface of the present bronze. Amazone was frequently paired with Stuck's Verwundeter zentaur (Wounded Centaur, 1893), both in architectural settings and also in later paintings. Today a life-size cast of Amazone sands outside the Villa Stuck, Munich, as designed by the artist, and two other casts of the model by the Leyrer foundry like the present lot may be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. 27.21.7) and the Harvard Art Museums, Boston (inv. 2003.132). However, both of these examples are of later date than the present model, as indicated by the inclusion of the honorific 'von' to Stuck's signature in works cast after 1906 when the artist received the Order of Merit of the Bavarian Crown.