Two walnut carvings by Johann Huggler (1834–1912), made in the same year, for the same reason, and offered together.
In the winter of 1871, Huggler’s younger brother Albert, his closest companion and fellow carver, was lost in a climbing accident in the mountains above Brienz. Among those who joined the search was his friend, the carver Walter Mader, with his dog Nase, but the dog too was lost in the mountains.
Around 1873, Huggler carved the memorial. He stands at the summit of a rocky ledge, rope coiled at his shoulder and hat held to his chest, while below him Albert lies fallen across the rocks, bound with rope, his head lowered to the stone. The composition rises on a strong vertical axis and is restrained throughout, an act of remembrance rather than a scene, with the rope, the boot lacing and the grain of the rock carved in close detail.
At Christmas 1873, Mader gave Huggler a pup, said to be part wolf, which Huggler named Gestank. Huggler answered with a portrait of Nase, carved for Mader. The long-haired hound lies at rest, the coat worked in flowing tool strokes, the face an individual likeness rather than a type. Huggler usually left his work unstained, but here, in concession to Mader, who stained his own, he added light coloring in the dog's natural tones. On the underside he burned a mark of two mountain slopes crossed by two vertical lines.
Mader’s journal, as preserved in the Mader family, records the gift: “He comes early in the year… and as we sit by the fire, he places in my hands a wrapped cloth. Inside I hold what I have missed, Nase. He has carved my dear dog back to life… beneath, the slopes of two, marked twice, for Albert and for Nase, taken by the mountain…”
Huggler was the leading carver of the Brienz tradition, exhibiting at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. These two works, made for private reasons and never intended for sale, show a side of his art that the exhibition pieces do not. Both will be illustrated in the forthcoming updated edition of Swiss Carvings.
Condition: Both are in walnut and in very good condition, with original surface. The carving is complete and crisp, and the burned mark beneath the Nase carving is present and legible. Minor wear consistent with age is present, and no restorations were noted.
Literature: For Johann Huggler, see Jay Arenski, Simon Daniels and Michael Daniels, Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, Antique Collectors’ Club, 2006.
Two walnut carvings by Johann Huggler (1834–1912), made in the same year, for the same reason, and offered together.
In the winter of 1871, Huggler’s younger brother Albert, his closest companion and fellow carver, was lost in a climbing accident in the mountains above Brienz. Among those who joined the search was his friend, the carver Walter Mader, with his dog Nase, but the dog too was lost in the mountains.
Around 1873, Huggler carved the memorial. He stands at the summit of a rocky ledge, rope coiled at his shoulder and hat held to his chest, while below him Albert lies fallen across the rocks, bound with rope, his head lowered to the stone. The composition rises on a strong vertical axis and is restrained throughout, an act of remembrance rather than a scene, with the rope, the boot lacing and the grain of the rock carved in close detail.
At Christmas 1873, Mader gave Huggler a pup, said to be part wolf, which Huggler named Gestank. Huggler answered with a portrait of Nase, carved for Mader. The long-haired hound lies at rest, the coat worked in flowing tool strokes, the face an individual likeness rather than a type. Huggler usually left his work unstained, but here, in concession to Mader, who stained his own, he added light coloring in the dog's natural tones. On the underside he burned a mark of two mountain slopes crossed by two vertical lines.
Mader’s journal, as preserved in the Mader family, records the gift: “He comes early in the year… and as we sit by the fire, he places in my hands a wrapped cloth. Inside I hold what I have missed, Nase. He has carved my dear dog back to life… beneath, the slopes of two, marked twice, for Albert and for Nase, taken by the mountain…”
Huggler was the leading carver of the Brienz tradition, exhibiting at the Exposition Universelle in Paris and the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. These two works, made for private reasons and never intended for sale, show a side of his art that the exhibition pieces do not. Both will be illustrated in the forthcoming updated edition of Swiss Carvings.
Condition: Both are in walnut and in very good condition, with original surface. The carving is complete and crisp, and the burned mark beneath the Nase carving is present and legible. Minor wear consistent with age is present, and no restorations were noted.
Literature: For Johann Huggler, see Jay Arenski, Simon Daniels and Michael Daniels, Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, Antique Collectors’ Club, 2006.
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