Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940
The standard reference on the subject, co-authored by Simon Daniels
Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940 was written by Simon Daniels with his father Michael Daniels and the London dealer Jay Arenski, and published by the Antique Collectors' Club in 2006.
It was the first full-length study to treat the subject with scholarly rigor, tracing the carvers of Brienz from a village craft to an art honored at the great international exhibitions and prized by travelers on the Grand Tour. Simon Daniels holds a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from Durham University and an MPhil in Archaeology from Cambridge, and was among the first dealers in the United States to devote a gallery almost exclusively to the field. The book remains the standard reference, and the connoisseurship behind it informs every Black Forest piece the gallery handles.
Swiss Black Forest carved walnut mantel clock with mountaineering bears, Brienz, circa 1900. Illustrated in Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, plate 00.
The book presents Black Forest carving as one of the serious achievements of nineteenth-century decorative art.
The work of Brienz, on the shore of Lake Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, it was carried across Europe and America by travelers on the Grand Tour and shown at the great international exhibitions, where the finest pieces were judged against the sculpture of the age. The book traces that ascent, from a village craft to an art of real ambition, and sets out the standards by which the best work is still measured.
The book follows the tradition from its origins as a cottage industry in the years after the 1816 famine through to the Second World War. By 1910 some thirteen hundred carvers were working in and around Brienz, supplying a market driven by the great age of Alpine tourism. It sets out the principal workshops and hands, among them Johann Huggler, the foremost of the Brienz carvers, his son Hans Huggler-Wyss, Walter Mader, Christian Fischer and the Ruef Brothers, alongside the retailers and the Brienz carving school, whose training raised the craft to a fine art. A substantial section is given to the international exhibitions, from the Great Exhibition of 1851 in London to the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893 in Chicago, where the carvers won the recognition that established Black Forest work as a serious form of nineteenth-century sculpture. The importance of the American market, where the finest pieces were sold and where much of the best material remains, runs throughout.
Illustrated largely from private collections, with period photographs and original catalogue pages, the book remains the point of departure for collectors, curators and the trade. It is now out of print and has itself become sought after. The connoisseurship it represents underpins every piece we handle, and it informs the wider Swiss Black Forest collection at Daniels Antiques as well as our collector’s guide to the field.
Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940
Jay Arenski, Simon Daniels and Michael Daniels
Antique Collectors’ Club, 2006
181 pages, color illustrations, cloth with pictorial jacket
ISBN 9781851494934
Out of print
Swiss Black Forest carved walnut mantel clock with mountaineering bears, Brienz, circa 1900, detail. Illustrated in Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, plate 00.
Swiss Black Forest carved walnut bear jardinière stand with a majolica bowl, Brienz, circa 1900. Illustrated in Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, plate 00.
Swiss Black Forest carved walnut dog umbrella stand, Brienz, circa 1880. Illustrated in Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, plate 00.
“At the great world’s fairs, the carvers of Brienz took their place among the sculptors of Europe.”
Swiss Black Forest carved walnut group of a dog and four puppies, Brienz, circa 1880, detail. Illustrated in Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, plate 00.
Swiss Black Forest carved walnut group of a dog and four puppies, Brienz, circa 1880. Illustrated in Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, plate 00.
Swiss Black Forest carved walnut group of a fox and a hare, Brienz, circa 1880. Illustrated in Swiss Carvings: The Art of the Black Forest, 1820–1940, plate 00.
