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- 1. Paul Heermann (1673-1732)
Saturn and Ops, after 1715
White marble - 139.5 x 66 x 53 cm
Dresden, SKD, Skulpturensammlung
Photo: Tomasso - See the image in its page
7/4/23 - Acquisition and exhibition - Dresden, Skulpturensammlung - An exhibition-file was needed to properly celebrate the happy outcome of ten years of hopes and negotiations: a monumental marble (ill. 1) by Paul Heermann made its majestic return to the banks of the Elbe after having left Germany in 2008! We had discovered this spectacular Baroque sculpture on the stand of the Tomasso Gallery - then Tomasso Brothers - at the Tefaf in Maastricht in 2017, but it was only in 2022 that it was finally acquired by the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden (SKD) thanks to the support of several major patrons: Kulturstiftung der Länder, Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung, Rudolf-August Oetker-Stiftung, Förderverein Raffaello e. V., Freundeskreis Paragone Dresden e. V. ! Roman goddess of abundance and fertility, Ops appears here lifted by her husband Saturn, god of agriculture, represented as a winged and bearded old man (ill. 2 and 3). As rulers of the golden age described in ancient mythology, Saturn and Ops are here an allegory of the glorious era of Augustus the Strong, who ruled Dresden when Paul Heermann sculpted his large marble. The marble succeeds in harmoniously combining monumentality and grace, although the wonderful details of the drapery, the prominent veins and the feathers are equally admirable, as the surface has been very well preserved.
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- 2. Paul Heermann (1673-1732)
Saturn and Ops, after 1715
White marble - 139.5 x 66 x 53 cm (detail)
Dresden, SKD, Skulpturensammlung
Photo: Tomasso - See the image in its page
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- 3. Paul Heermann (1673-1732)
Saturn and Ops, after 1715
White marble - 139.5 x 66 x 53 cm (detail)
Dresden, SKD, Skulpturensammlung
Photo: Tomasso - See the image in its page
The marble has obviously never been exposed to the weather: although its early history is still unknown to this day, its presence is attested to in 1809 in Lucklum, the administrative headquarters of the Teutonic Knights’ order in the province of Saxony. When Napoleon I dissolved the order, the manor house passed into private hands and its treasures were gradually sold. In 2008, the sculpture, showing Chronos and Venus, was sold at auction at Schloss Ahlden and later acquired by a Belgian dealer who sold it to Tomasso Brothers. The British gallery was responsible for identifying the protagonists and reattributing the work to Paul Heermann, which was subsequently validated by Eike D. Schmidt, a specialist in the artist and director of the Uffizi Galleries in Florence since 2015. Saturn and Ops was then presented at Tefaf and published in the gallery catalogue, along with an extensive note - also available online - from which we ourselves drew extensively during the course of our writing.
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- 4. Paul Heermann (1673-1732)
Saturn and Ops, after 1715
White marble - 139.5 x 66 x 53 cm
Dresden, SKD, Skulpturensammlung
Photo : Tomasso - See the image in its page
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- 4. 2. Paul Heermann (1673-1732)
Saturn and Ops, after 1715
White marble - 139.5 x 66 x 53 cm
Dresden, SKD, Skulpturensammlung
Photo: Tomasso - See the image in its page
You really have to take the time to walk slowly around this work (ill. 4 and 5) to appreciate all the subtleties, the artist having taken care of every detail of his composition, from the laurelled head of Ops to the toes of Saturn. The return of the sculpted group to Saxony was a big event: announced at the beginning of December, the acquisition was immediately followed by the opening of an exhibition which ends on 16 April. Stephan Koja and Claudia Kryza-Gersch were able to study Paul Heermann and his masterpieces once again in the rich publication that accompanies this exhibition, a true model of its kind. This small monograph, unfortunately only available in German, is a mine of information.
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- 6. View of the exhibition "Der sächsische Barockbildhauer Paul Heermann" at the Zwinger in Dresden
Photo: Alexander Peitz - See the image in its page
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- 7. View of the exhibition "Der sächsische Barockbildhauer Paul Heermann" at the Zwinger in Dresden
Photo: Alexander Peitz - See the image in its page
A dozen works by Paul Heermann have been brought together in an elegant museography (ill. 6 and 7) which allows a better understanding of the development of Saturn and Ops and the artistic path of its author. Born in the shadow of the Ore Mountains in 1673, he began his career as an apprentice to his uncle Johann Georg Heermann, himself a sculptor at the Saxon court. Although they both travelled to Rome, Paul Heermann had the opportunity to work alongside his uncle on the staircase of Troja Castle near Prague. He returned to Dresden at the beginning of the 18th century and created both religious and garden sculptures, working with equal virtuosity in ivory and marble. This is also what justifies the acquisition of this monumental group: the collections of the Dresden museums were rather rich in small and medium-sized works, divided between the Grünes Gewölbe and the Skulpturensammlung.
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- 8. Paul Heermann (1673-1732)
The Coronation of Laurels, 1712
White marble - 69.8 x 40.6 x 33 cm
Los Angeles County Museum of Art
Photo: Los Angeles County Museum of Art - See the image in its page
In the catalogue of this exhibition-file, Claudia Kryza-Gersch brings Saturne and Ops closer to another sculpted group by Paul Heermann, his two putti (ill. 8) in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, which seem almost a miniature version of the marble now returned to Dresden. Here, it is the female figure that crowns the male figure with laurels and the work has the advantage of being signed and dated 1712. While the attribution is no longer in doubt, the question of the iconography, which evokes the Roman Saturnalia celebrations, remains to be resolved: the catalogue proposes a bold and attractive hypothesis by recalling the celebrations given - on the theme of Saturn - in 1719 on the occasion of the marriage of Prince Friedrich August to Archduchess Maria Josef of Austria, daughter of Emperor Joseph I and niece of Emperor Charles VI. Paul Heermann’s large marble would thus perpetuate these luxurious Saturnalia Saxoniae for which sumptuous ephemeral decorations had been created [1].
Edited by Stephan Koja and Claudia Kryza-Gersch, Der sächsische Barockbildhauer Paul Heermann, Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden/Sandstein Verlag, 2022, 124 p., €19.80, ISBN: 9783954987177