Creative Commons License
"Putti" Playing Piggy Back
(Baroque Europe )
The chubby little boy with a baby on his back is too strong to be a real toddler. These infants must be putti, the playful, often winged spirits in the shape of little naked babies and children that were popular throughout the baroque age as expressions of the artists' inventiveness and wit.
Kern specialized in small-scale sculptures produced in a variety of materials, although it is not clear whether he supervised the production of bronze versions of his compositions. These were collected by aristocratic patrons, and, in 1648, Kern was appointed as court sculptor to Friedrich Wilhelm von Hohenzollern, elector of Brandenburg.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object.
George Robinson Harding, London; Henry Walters, Baltimore [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Geographies
Germany, Schwabisch Hall (Place of Origin)
Measurements
H: 7 11/16 × W: 2 5/8 × D: 2 5/8 in. (19.6 × 6.6 × 6.6 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
54.291