Lot 1194 | Serpentine Dancers

STUCK, FRANZ VON
1863 Tettenweis - 1928 Tetschen


Title: Serpentine Dancers.
Technique: Bronze relief.
Height: 61 x 98cm.
Notation: Inscribed right: Franz / Stuck.


Literature:
Cf.: T. Raff: "Die Kraft des Mannes und die weiche Schmiegsamkeit des Weibes" Franz von Stuck: Das plastische Werk. Exhib. cat. Franz von Stuck Geburtshaus Tettenweis, July 2011 - June 2013, p. 38ff.

Provenance:
Private ownership, Germany.

Franz von Stuck's probably most famous relief "Serpentine Dancers" was created in connection with the planning of his Munich artists' villa and was later produced as a bronze and plaster relief in an unknown edition. In the course of the furnishing, the artist intended a coloured copy in plaster for the music salon of his villa, and he had another relief in bronze mounted on the garden wall. Stuck continued to produce numerous works, which he also created for other private rooms and salons (e.g. for the music salon of Otto Eckmann). "With the relief, Stuck's efforts to decorate not only interiors but also facades and gardens began. (Exhibited in the Gallery of the City of Aschaffenburg, Aschaffenburg 1994, p. 118).
The relief shows two dancing girls in sweeping lines. The figures with their turn to the ornamental and their distinct Art Nouveau moments may have been inspired by the American dancer Loie Fuller. In her solo programme she showed the dance "Serpentine" on her celebrated European tour, which she performed wrapped in woollen robes. The effect of her veil or serpentine dance spread to the most different areas. Poets and composers inspired her as well as painters and sculptors (e.g. Toulouse-Lautrec, Georges Meunier and Pierre Roche).
On the basis of other works with similar motifs, it can be assumed that von Stuck saw the veil dance of Loie Fuller. But at least he must have encountered her in illustrations and on posters.