Franz Xavier BERGMANN (1861-1936) THE DEVIL

Franz Xavier BERGMANN (1861-1936)

THE DEVIL

Cold painted bronze, signed. Height: 8.5 cm - Length: 13 cm

Franz Xaver Bergmann ( July 27, 1861 – January 1, 1936) was the owner of a Viennese foundry who produced numerous patinated and cold-painted bronze Oriental, erotic and animal figures, the latter often humanized or whimsical, humorous objets d'art.

His father, Franz Bergmann (September 26, 1838 – 1894), was a professional chaser from Gablonz who came to Vienna and founded a small bronze factory in 1860. Franz Xaver Bergmann inherited the company and opened a new foundry in 1900. Many of the bronzes from the 1900s were still based on designs from his father's workshop.

Bergmann is often incorrectly described as a sculptor, but he was not; he was a foundry owner. His workshops employed, on a temporary basis, many anonymous sculptors. Bruno Zach employed Bergmann to edit and cast some of his works, with some of the more erotic ones being signed as "Prof. Tuch", a pseudonym used by Zach. At the turn of the 19th century there were about fifty workshops producing Vienna bronzes.