102707 | GERMANY. "Youth and Age in War & Peace" uniface cast iron Plaque.

102707  |  GERMANY. "Youth and Age in War & Peace" uniface cast iron Plaque. Issued circa 1917/8 (79mm x 38mm, 84.59 g). By W. Götze.

 

Triptych in bas relief featuring lamentations of warfare: in left panel, liturgical figure standing right, blessing soldiers; in central panel, procession of soldiers advancing leftward, with others bidding farewell; in right panel, another soldier (or Death/the Grim Reaper) standing left, holding scythe; in two lines below, KRIEG WIE ERFULLST DU DIE JUGEND MIT LUST UND DAS ALTER MIT SCHMERZ / FRIEDEN BEDARFST DU O WELT WIE DAS MENSCHLICHE HARZ ("War, how do you fill the young with zeal and the old with sorrow? Oh world, you need peace as does the heart of man") // Blank, though "LAC" and "446" are written in white. Edge: Plain.

 

Klose –; The Art of Devastation –; Kulturhistorisk Museum (Oslo), M12775.

 

Essentially As Made. Blackened iron surfaces. Extremely rare, with no works by this artist mentioned in either Europas Verderben (Klose) or The Art of Devastation, and with just one other able to be located (unimaged, in a museum in Oslo).

 

Ex Virgil M. Brand Collection (Coin Galleries [15 April 1992], lot 1595 [part of]).

 

Differing from the Expressionism of many of the contemporary German and Austrian engravers of World War I-era medals, Wilhelm Götze presents a vastly different take, with somewhat of a Neoclassical-inspired take, along with some Art Deco influences. What is presented stands as a solemn lamentation on the ugliness of war, with a drastically different tone than what many of Götze's contemporaries were producing. This extremely rare type, of which just one other could be located (in a museum in Oslo), also emanates from the prestigious collection of Virgil M. Brand, who amassed a collection of over 350,000 items. This piece has been off the market since 1992, the only time at which it has sold, as it had remained within the Brand family even following his untimely death in 1926.

 

Upload: 1 February 2024.

 

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