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190
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LUSTERWEIBCHEN-STYLE SHIELD HOLDER
Carved, polychrome and gi…
See original version (French)
190
-
LUSTERWEIBCHEN-STYLE SHIELD HOLDER
Carved, polychrome and gi…
See original version (French)
Estimate €8,000 - €12,000
Voluntary lot
Description
LUSTERWEIBCHEN-STYLE SHIELD HOLDER
Carved, polychrome and gilded wood, depicting a lion holding a coat-of-arms shield (illegible), emerging from a tortil from which two large goat’s horns extend.
Germany, 16th century.
Height: 50 cm – Width: 77 cm
(Minor visible damage and losses, restoration work)
Description:
First appearing in the Germanic world at the end of the Middle Ages, the ‘Leuchterweibchen’ type – or, more broadly, the ‘Geweihleuchter’ (literally, a ‘horned’ or ‘antlered’ chandelier) – combines a carved figure, usually polychromed, with a pair of animal horns or antlers arranged horizontally. These suspended objects, straddling the line between lighting fixtures, heraldic emblems and decorative sculpture, enjoyed particular popularity in Germanic and Alpine countries at the turn of the 16th century.
Our hanging light takes up this principle in a zoomorphic and heraldic variation: a lion bearing a shield, emerging from a twisted rod, advances between two large goat’s horns. The object is therefore not a Lusterweibchen in the literal sense (the ‘little woman chandelier’) but rather to a broader family of heraldic pendant lamps, in which the carved figure—whether human, fantastical or animal—serves as a symbol of lineage, office or affiliation.
Several surviving examples help to reconstruct the context of this type of object. The Rijksmuseum, for instance, holds a ‘Leuchterweibchen met wapenschild’, attributed to an anonymous sculptor from Mechelen and dated to around 1525, comprising a female figure in polychrome and gilded walnut, holding a shield, accompanied by a pair of antlers and iron chains, [Inv. No. BK-1969-1]. The museum’s description notes that the exact meaning of this combination of a figure, a shield and suspended antlers remains partly enigmatic, whilst pointing out that such objects might have been displayed in town halls and thus held official significance.
The same civic or representative dimension is found in the Wild Man Chandelier (Lustermännchen) at the Toledo Museum of Art, Germany, Alpine region, c. 1525–1550, [Inv. No. 2021,39], where a carved and polychromed ‘wild man’ holds a shield whilst a pair of deer antlers extend from behind the figure. The museum notes that these antlered chandeliers were placed in civic spaces, guild halls, stately homes and even ecclesiastical settings.
One of the most famous zoomorphic examples of the genre remains the Drachenleuchter, created in 1522 by Veit Stoß after a drawing by Albrecht Dürer, now in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, [Inv. No. HG68]. Commissioned for the council chamber of Nuremberg Town Hall, it brilliantly illustrates this quintessentially Renaissance encounter between sculptural artistry and the natural world: the antlers, far from being mere accessories, become the organic extension of a composite being.
Through its combination of a heraldic animal, a shield and natural antlers, our pendant reflects the German Renaissance taste for hybrid objects, in which nature, sculpture and emblems interplay. The lion, a symbol of power and vigilance, becomes the guardian of a coat of arms that is now illegible, preserving not so much the precise identity of a lineage as the tangible memory of a ceremonial setting.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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