This reproduction of The Yawner is made to replicate one of a series of portrait busts or "character heads" made by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, an eighteenth-century German sculptor active in Austria.
- Sculpture measures: 3.5 inches H x 2 inches W 2.25 inches D - Gift Box measures: 5-5/8 inches H x 3-5/16 inches W x 3 inches D - Item #: PA14ME
From about 1770 on, Messerschmidt devoted himself to the creation of his 'character heads,' the body of work for which he would become best known. To produce these works, the artist would look into the mirror, pinching his body and contorting his face. He then rendered, with great precision, his distorted expressions. Messerschmidt made his mark at first in Vienna, where he enjoyed a successful career, including several royal commissions. Working in a neoclassical vein, Messerschmidt produced some of the most important sculptures of the eighteenth century. He presented the individual features of his models in a way “true to nature,” in keeping with their age and without idealizing them. No other sculptor in Vienna at the time was similarly uncompromising when producing portraits. Messerschmidt is known to have produced more than 60 of these astonishing works before he died in 1783 at the age of 47. This is a miniature reproduction of the larger sculpture of the same title.
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