Description: Figure Sieg/victory. Designed in 1912. Made after 1915. Ceramic. Cream and blue painting, shiny craquelée glaze. Standing female figure in orange posture with folded cloth, on a pedestal of two platforms, between which lies a figure. 65 x 32 x 29 cm. Inscribed on the base inside with the company mark KTK (scratched), indistinctly marked B. Hoetger on the back of the base. The figure 'Der Sieg' is the protagonist of the 15-figure majolica cycle 'Light and Shadow'. This cycle was first shown in 1914 at the third exhibition of the artists' colony in Darmstadt. The Darmstadt artists' colony, founded in 1899 by Gro?herzog Ernst Ludwig von Hessen und bei Rhein, has appointed numerous important artists such as Peter Behrens, Joseph Maria Olbrich and Hans Christiansen, and also Bernhard Hoetger in the late phase of the colony. Hoetger was commissioned to design sculptures for the plane tree grove, a rectangular open-air area in the colony. These works and the majolica cycle 'Light and Shadow' are main works of his Darmstadt time. Seven light figures facing seven shadow figures. The light or shadow figures are each grouped around a central Buddha, entitled Light or Shadow. The Light Buddha is surrounded by the personifications Love, Truth, Mildness, Kindness, Faith and Hope, the Shadow Buddha of Deceit, Revenge, Avarice, Hatred and Greed. The present figure 'Sieg/Victory' is the only standing figure and, at 66 cm, the largest of the cycle in which the victory of light over the shadow is visually manifested in a combination of European and Asian representational motifs.
Artist or Maker: Bernhard Hoetger
Date: Design 1912
Condition Report: Condition Report available on request
Literature: Licht und Schatten. Berhard Hoetger. Majoliken 1910-1912. Katalog zur Ausstellung im Bremer Landesmuseum 1993, S. 88f., Abb.
Notes: Kunstt?pferei Kandern