Regent Antiques - Bronzes - Stunning Bronze Female Dancer in Gold Sculpture Preiss

A gilded and beautifully sculpted dancing lady in the timeless Art Nouveau style.

  The attention to detail throughout the piece is second to none and the figure stands upon an attractive marble base.

  This high quality bronze is made from the lost wax process (cire perdue). It is a recast of an original by Ferdinand Preiss and bears the associated signature. 

 39 cm high  

15 cm wide

  11 cm deep

Weight 2.6 kg

  Johann Philipp Ferdinand Preiss (February 13, 1882 - 1943) was a German sculptor. He was born in Erbach im Odenwald as one of six children. Both of his parents died when he was 15 so that he was apprenticed to the carver Philipp Willmann and lived with his family. In 1901 he traveled to Rome and Paris.

He became friendly with Arthur Kassler in Baden-Baden, which led to the founding of the company Preiss & Kassler, operating from Berlin. Kassler became the business-minded partner and Preiss controlled artistic production.

In 1907 he married Margarethe Hilme, producing two children, Harry and Lucie. Initially the company created small carvings of children and statuettes of classical form. From 1910 the firm grew to specialize in limited edition Art Deco cabinet sculptures that used painted bronze on plinths of onyx and marble, with an occasional foray into mantelpiece clocks and lampstands. Preiss designed nearly all the firm's models. Casting of the pieces was done by the firm Gladenbeck in Berlin. With the outbreak of World War I in 1914 the company was employing six extremely skilled carvers from Erbach and exporting regularly to England and the United States.

The firm closed with Preiss's death from a brain tumor in 1943. The old workshop in Ritterstraße in Berlin, which was housing the stock of samples, was gutted by a fire resulting from a bomb attack shortly before the end of World War II.

Preiss' works are greatly valued by modern collectors.     

Sometimes called by the French name of 'cire perdue' or the Latin, 'cera perduta' is the process by which a bronze or brass is cast from an artist's sculpture.  In industrial uses, the modern process is called investment casting. An ancient practice, the process today varies from foundry to foundry, but the steps which are usually used in casting small bronze sculptures in a modern bronze foundry are generally quite standardised.