FIGURE OF A SAINT Schrezheim, circa 1770–75. Model possibly by Johann Martin Mutschele.

FIGURE OF A SAINT

Schrezheim, circa 1770–75. Model possibly by Johann Martin Mutschele.
Faience decorated in overglaze enamels. On a high Baroque architectural base, in a gesture of humility with his left hand raised to his chest and his right hand extended in a gesture of proclamation. His yellow-painted cloak over a purple robe, the base painted in polychrome enamels. Pierced through the head and back for mounting. Unmarked.
H 31.5 cm.
The right hand and the tip of the nose have been restored.

Provenance:
- Igo Levi Collection, Lucerne; Weinmüller Auction, 1962, No. 355, Plate 20.
- Wintergerst Collection; Nagel Auction, Stuttgart, 1981, No. 162.
- Neumeister Auction, Munich, 1984, No. 96.
- Stuker Auction, Berne, May 1986, No. 4303.
- Peter Ducret Collection, Kilchberg.

The most important work of the Schrezheim faience factory is the Rococo faience altar in the Chapel of St Anthony in Schrezheim, now a district of Ellwangen. It was designed by the Bamberg sculptor Johann Martin Mutschele circa 1773–74 and executed in faience by Johann Baptist Bux at the Ellwangen manufactory in Schrezheim. The figures on the white-glazed altar, with restrained colored decoration, display features in the flesh tones similar to those of the present figure.

Mutschele is regarded as the modeller of a pair of important figures of saints from Schrezheim; cf. Erdner-Nagel 1972, figs. 3–5. The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, houses the most important Schrezheim sculpture, a Madonna and Child made for the princely court of Wolfram-Eschenbach, formerly in the Igo Levi Collection, inv. no. 61.1185.

Schrezheim (1752–1865)

On 29 July 1752, Johann Baptist Bux, a wine merchant and native of Schrezheim, received a "Freyheits Brieff" granting economic privileges from Franz Georg von Schönborn, Archbishop of Trier and Elector, whose territory included the Prince-Provostry of Ellwangen, enabling him to establish a "Porcellain-Fabric" in what is now the Schrezheim district.
Local competition (Adam Friedrich Prahl and the arcanist Josef Jakob Ringler) forced him, in April 1758, to obtain the arcanum for porcelain production as quickly as possible alongside his faience production in order not to lose his privilege to operate the factory. Fortunately for Bux, Ringler moved to Ludwigsburg, and in 1761 Bux was able to engage Johann Andreas Bechdolff for the extremely costly production of porcelain. Bechdolff, however, left as early as 1763. Until his death in 1817, he worked as an independent porcelain and snuffbox painter. Louis Victor Gerverot, a native of Lunéville, later came to Schrezheim and shaped the manufactory’s production until 1775.
Schrezheim enjoyed its period of greatest prosperity until around 1780, although porcelain production had already ceased in 1775. Owing to the brief period during which porcelain was produced, only a small number of Schrezheim porcelain wares are known.
The death of Bux in 1800 heralded the decline of the manufactory. The business passed to his children, the priest Alois Bux and his two married sisters and their husbands, Anton Wintergerst and Anton Pfister. The factory continued under subsequent generations of the Wintergerst family until production ceased in 1852. The remaining stock was sold at auction in 1865.
The famous Schrezheim Levi Madonna (Boston, USA) ranks among the most important figural works in faience. The manufactory’s principal masterpiece, the faience altar for the Chapel of St Anthony in Schrezheim, is believed to have been created in 1773–74.