Flora, a bust of Luise Engel, by Christian Daniel Rauch, circa 1835-39

Edited and adapted from Christie's' lot essay, October 2020:

A GIFT TO THE EMPRESS? 

This composition was originally intended as the study for a head of Danaid commissioned by Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. Rauch took great care in the model’s creation, choosing Luise Engel, a young woman famed for her beauty, for his subject. Dissatisfied, however, with his inability to capture the longing expression necessary for a Danaid, he transformed the study into a Flora, adding the elaborate wreath adorned with a double band of flowers. In 1839, Rauch noted in a letter that he sent a version of the Flora composition as a forerunner to the Danaid to Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, who was so pleased with the piece that she thanked him with a diamond ring decorated with her cipher. Rauch charmingly declared the bust to be a "fallen chip" from his larger Danaid composition for the Emperor, which was finished in the same year to great acclaim. In her catalogue raisonné on the artist, von Simson discusses three marble busts of Flora, the first one gifted to the Empress, the second, a significantly damaged version, in a private Berlin collection in the late 1990s, and a third recorded in the account book. It is possible that this piece is the latter, however, given the provenance of the present bust, it is more probable that this work is that which was gifted to the Empress in the 1830s. Further strengthening the Imperial Russian provenance, is that this bust formed part of the auctioned collection of the painter Paraskewe von Bereskine. Included in this sale were multiple lots of Russian origin and documented pieces from the Imperial Russian collections, formerly in the Palace of Pavlovsk and the Catherine Palace at Tsarskoe Selo.

Rauch’s sculptures still shape the landscape of many German cities today. He was particularly sought after for his public monuments and he found favor among many royal and aristocratic collectors, including the Prussian ruling family and the royal houses of Bavaria and Hanover. Interest in Rauch and the "Berlin School" as not only limited to the Continent. Rauch was collected by members of the British aristocracy including the sixth Duke of Devonshire and the Duke of Wellington, who visited Rauch’s studio in 1826 and subsequently commissioned several works. He was also featured in London’s Great Exhibition of 1851. While Rauch may have become famous for his public monuments and well-publicized royal commissions, his reputation has been revived by sculptures such as the present bust. It is technically brilliant but, most of all, it’s modern appeal is that it is refreshingly intimate and intensely personal.

Auction estimate: USD 30,000 - USD 50,000

Price realised: USD 200,000

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Christian Daniel Rauch (2 January 1777, Arolsen – 3 December 1857, Dresden), German sculptor, founder the Berlin school of sculpture, and the foremost German sculptor of the nineteenth century. His father was employed at the court of Prince Frederick II of Hesse, and at the age of thirteen Rauch was apprenticed to the court sculptor of Arolsen, Friedrich Valentin. Five years later he became assistant to Johann Christian Ruhl, the court sculptor of Kassel. At the age of twenty, after the death of his father and older brother, he moved to Berlin where he was appointed groom of the chamber in the king's household. He abandoned sculpture temporarily, but his in spare hours he eventually began working again, coming under the influence of Johann Gottfried Schadow, and in 1802, he exhibited his “Sleeping Endymion.” Queen Louisa of Prussia, recognizing his talent, sent him to study at the Prussian Academy of Art. In 1804, Count Sandrecky gave Rauch the means to complete his education at Rome, where he was befriended by Wilhelm von Humboldt, Antonio Canova, and Bertel Thorvaldsen. He remained in Rome for six years. In 1811, he was commissioned to execute a monument for recently deceased Queen Louisa, a work that brought him great fame; a similar statue of the Queen, even more successful, was placed in the Sanssouci Park at Potsdam. The creation of nearly all public statues soon came to be entrusted to him. In 1830, along with the architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel, he began work on a colossal equestrian monument at Berlin to honor King Frederick II of Prussia. This work was finally inaugurated with great ceremony in May of 1851, and is regarded as the crowning achievement of his work as a portrait and historic sculptor. In 1837 Rauch became an associate member of the Royal Institute of the Netherlands. He died twenty years later at the age of eighty.