Object Description
Large, very fine KPM porcelain plaque of ‘Tannhauser und Venus,’ after Knille
German, Late 19th Century
Frame: height 58cm, width 67cm, depth 7cm
Plaque: height 44cm, width 54cm
This outstanding porcelain plaque is one of the finest such examples by KPM (Konigliche Porzellan-Manufaktur), the renowned German porcelain manufacturers, and depicts Tannhauser and Venus, taking its subject from a scene from German myth also adapted into opera by the likes of Wagner.
This particular work and composition is taken from the 1873 painting by Otto Knille (German, 1832-1898) which is considered perhaps the main work of this Düsseldorf history painter which hangs in the National Gallery of art in Berlin. In the scene, Tannhäuser recoils from the goddess Venus, the scene set in Venusberg.
Tannhäuser, a legendary travelling poet, supposedly set up the Venusberg as a subterranean abode in which to worship the goddess of love. As the tale progresses, he realizes that the life purely in the sensory and sexual world of Venus gives him no fulfilment, as such he recoils from her, and she in turn tries to hold him back.
Conveying all the force and power of the original, with spectacular use of chiaroscuro, and with beautifully painted figures, it bears the KPM and incised marks to the reverse and signed to the front ‘A. Knye.’