highlighted lots
Story behind the octoberauction
After auctioning a magnificent Mammoth statue by Pallenberg last year, we now have a magnificent statue of a lion couple.
Josef Pallenberg was born in Cologne on 6 August 1882 and was very interested in animals from an early age. A visit to the Cologne Zoo inspired the six-year-old to start drawing animals, and attempts to model them soon followed.
Experiments with reconstructing the skeletons of dead animals, which he first cooked in his mother's pans, were the starting point for a later studio that would become filled with skeletons and casts from nature. In 1899, Pallenberg, then only seventeen, enrolled at the art academy in Düsseldorf, where he initially studied drawing, but soon switched to the sculpture class of Karl Janssen. While still a student, his group 'Boar Hunt' earned him his first critical acclaim in 1902, when it was recommended for a gold medal at the Great Industrial Fair in Düsseldorf.
In 1904, he appeared with 16 animal figures at the Great Berlin Art Exhibition. He was commissioned by the “Zoologischer Garten” in Berlin to make the bronze sculptures at the main entrance for the opening in 1907.
His more than naturalistic animal figures were not only created by accurate observation and a fabulous artistic eye, but also by the respect for the animal individual that arose from living together with, for example, the tame lioness Juste, the lion Hassan and the wolf Prinz in his studio near the Cologne Zoo, which his neighbours did not always appreciate, as he often took them out on a leash.
Source: Passage Arts & Sladmore Gallery
Information about the bidding:
How does (live-online) bidding work?
Create account/ Log in:
To participate in our (live-online) auctions you must create an account or log in with your existing account. After you have logged in you can bid on our auctions.
Information for consignors:
For our auctions we ask for consignment of paintings, antique furniture, clocks, silver, glass, earthenware, Chinese, Japanese, German, English and French porcelain, toys, antique weapons, collections, etc. Only of good quality. Also total collections and contents.
More info ⟶