Abstract
The interest in fairy tales grew strongly over the course of the nineteenth century, particularly in Germany, the birthplace of Frans Stracké (1820-1898). Renowned artists made illustrations for popular publications of fairy tales and in the middleof the century characters from fairy tales also appeared in paintings and sculptures. The sculptor Frans Stracké was inspired by this development and in the eighteen-sixties created a Sleeping Beauty and a Snow White. He may have chosen these designs because the sleeping figure offers greater sculptural possibilities, for example in funeral art. He showed Sleeping Beauty at the precise moment she falls asleep, after she had pricked her finger on a spindle. Stracké followed the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm from 1812, in which the ill-fated event was predicted during the celebration of Sleeping Beauty’s birth. Sleeping Beauty (also known as Briar Rose) was precisely the sort of subject Stracké preferred: he excelled in making genre-like sculpture of a very high standard. This was little appreciated in the Netherlands, whereas in France and Italy practitioners of this type of sculpture enjoyed considerable success. Stracké is credited with introducing contemporary developments in European sculpture into the Netherlands; Sleeping Beauty is a relatively early and typical example.
Highlights
The rijksmuseum bulletin sleeping beauty: a marble briar rose by frans stracké
Frans Stracké, Master of Genre Sculpture Stracké may have been inspired by other artists like Cauer for his Sleeping Beauty, but when we look at the rest of his work we see that the subject is wholly in line with his own preferences
With works like Sleeping Beauty, Stracké placed himself alongside his international colleagues thematically, and with his technically clever execu tion he was in no way inferior to them
Summary
Sleeping Beauty: A Marble Briar Rose by Frans Stracké < Fig. 1 frans stracké, Sleeping Beauty, 1867.
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