Dog scratching its ear, a 17th century silver-plated pewter sculpture

Height: 2 1/8” (54 mm); width: 2 9/16” (65 mm), depth: 2 9/16” (65 mm)
On a black marble base ¾” x 4 ¼” x 3 13/16” (20 mm x 108 mm x 97 mm) – (the sculpture has been re-silvered)

This amusing naturalistic sculpture in silver-plated pewter was probably made in the 17th century by Georg Schweigger. Inspired by a model created by another Nuremberg sculptor, Peter Flötner, it bears witness to the persistence during the baroque era of the naturalist taste that emerged in the Renaissance. Intended as an ornament for some Kunstkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, this sculpture was a great success, as can be seen from the presence of similar works in many European museums.

1. Georg Schweigger (1613 - 1690)

Georg Schweigger was a baroque sculptor and medal founder from Nuremberg, known mainly for his small-scale works in stone, carved wood and cast metal. His only large-scale work, the Neptune Fountain, has been in the Petershof Palace, the summer residence of the Tsars near St. Petersburg, since 1797. This monumental sculpture demonstrates his taste for the representation of movement, which we find in this small piece, inspired, as we shall see, by earlier models.

2. The success of a naturalistic theme

As is often the case in the history of art, the source of the Dog scratching its ear theme probably comes from an engraving, and more precisely from one made in Strasbourg in 1480 or in Aschaffenburg in 1481 by the Master of the Housebook, an anonymous engraver working in southern Germany at the end of the 15th century.

This engraving seems to have been Peter Flötner’s (1490 - 1546) source of inspiration. Peter Flötner was a sculptor and engraver who settled in Nuremberg in 1522. The Louvre Museum also has a gilded lead statuette dated between 1500 and 1515 (on deposit at the Musée de L'Œuvre in Strasbourg), which in turn is thought to have served as a model for other known statuettes.

This model was later taken up by the Frenchman Barthélemy Prieur (1526 - 1611), although it is not clear whether these two sculptors were directly inspired by the engraving of the Master of the Housebook or whether, as would seem more likely, Barthélemy Prieur was inspired by Peter Flötner. A sculpture attributed to Barthélemy Prieur, believed to date from the 1600s, was sold at Sotheby's Paris on 14 June 2022 for €18,270.

The later models attributed to Georg Schweigger often show variations on the Flötner one, such as the tongue hanging down or the tail raised (as in the model attributed to Barthélemy Prieur). The one presented here corresponds to the Flötner model, but the regularity of the original silver threaded fixing rods suggests that it was made after the beginning of the 17th century, and is therefore contemporary to Georg Schweigger’s activity.

The statuette of the Dog scratching its ear was a famous subject, of which several versions by different artists appear in many other museums, including the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden, as well as the museums of Berlin (since 1701), Braunschweig, Vienna, Cleveland and Munich.

Main bibliographic elements :
U. Berger, V. Krahn, Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, Herzog-Anton Ulrich Museum, Braunschweig, 1994, pp.275 - 276, figs. 222 and 223.
V. Krahn, Von allen Seiten schön. Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, Berlin, 1996, p. 544, no. 204.