ART DECO EROTIC BRONZE SARCOPHAGUS – BERGMANN

Rare finely chased bronze sarcophagus with polychrome highlights, signed by the renowned Viennese founder Franz Xaver Bergmann, presenting a dual iconography: on the exterior, a richly decorated Egyptianizing sarcophagus adorned with hieroglyphs, divine attributes, and symbolic colors; on the interior, a nude female figure modeled with a sensuality characteristic of Art Deco.

The façade of the sarcophagus, crafted like a true funerary lid, pivots open to reveal an idealized female body, draped only with jewelry and a stylized headdress. The ensemble rests on a base of black marble and honey onyx, typical of luxury pieces produced in Viennese workshops between 1900 and 1930.

This sculpture plays on a dual register:
on the one hand, the scholarly fascination with ancient Egypt, heightened after the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb in 1922; on the other, the sensual and sometimes unsettling aesthetic developed by Art Deco artists. The contrast between the hieratic, funerary exterior and the interior revealing a female figure of cold beauty creates a tension between archaeology, eroticism, and horror, typical of cabinet objects produced for collectors of curiosities in the first half of the 20th century.

The bronze retains its original patina, with elegant polychrome details still clearly visible in the hieroglyphs and ornaments of the sarcophagus. The female statuette preserves its metallic sheen and rosy flesh tones. Solid hinge and perfectly functional opening mechanism.

Egyptian Revival sculptures signed by Bergmann rank among the most sought-after on the market, due to their rarity, the quality of their casting, and the very particular imagination they convey, at the crossroads of the cabinet of curiosities, Orientalist art, and fin-de-siècle decadence.

Please note: a very small chip on the back of the black marble base.

PERIOD : Art Deco, circa 1920–1930
DIMENSIONS : 25 cm × 14 cm
SIZE : 9.8" × 5.5"

Egyptomania, highly fashionable after 1900, inspired many artists fascinated by funerary rites and the monumental aesthetics of the pharaohs. This taste for elsewhere, combined with a growing curiosity for archaeology, fueled the imagination of Viennese workshops such as Bergmann’s, which willingly played on the contrast between the solemn gravity of mummies and the stylized female nude, an emblem of modernity and sensuality.
This piece fully belongs to this tradition, offering a fantasized reinterpretation of the sarcophagus as an object with a secret, blending mystery, beauty, and a shiver of unease.

Franz Xaver Bergmann (also Franz Xaver Bergmann) (1861–1936) was the owner of a Viennese foundry that produced a wide range of Orientalist, erotic, and animal figures. His father, Franz Bergmann (1838–1894), was a professional chaser from Gablonz who settled in Vienna and founded a small bronze workshop there in 1860. After his son Franz Xaver Bergmann inherited the business, a new foundry was established around 1900, although many bronzes continued to be based on models from his father’s workshop. The Bergmann ateliers employed numerous sculptors, including Bruno Zach. Around the turn of the 20th century, some fifty workshops were producing Viennese bronzes. The Bergmann foundry closed in 1930 as a result of the Great Depression.