ArtistGermanb.1882–d.1943
Ferdinand Preiss
0 active items
Johann Philipp Ferdinand Preiss was born on 13 February 1882 in Erbach im Odenwald, a small town in the Hessian hills long associated with the ivory carving trade. He was one of six children; both parents died within a short period when he was fifteen, and he was apprenticed shortly afterward to the local ivory carver Philipp Willmann, living with the Willmann family during his training. The Erbach region had supplied skilled carvers to European courts and workshops for generations, and Preiss absorbed that technical tradition from the start.
After completing his apprenticeship Preiss traveled to Rome and later Paris, developing his eye for form and movement beyond the local craft conventions. In Baden-Baden he met Arthur Kassler, and in 1906 the two founded Preiss and Kassler in Berlin, a firm that would shape the European market for decorative sculpture over the following three decades. Kassler managed the commercial operation; Preiss directed all artistic production. The early output consisted of small ivory carvings - statuettes of children, figures drawn from classical antiquity, objects carved from salvaged billiard balls when fresh ivory was scarce.
From around 1910, the firm shifted decisively toward what would become its signature product: chryselephantine statuettes combining precisely carved ivory for faces and hands with cold-painted bronze for the body, set on bases of onyx or marble. Preiss developed a technical innovation that distinguished his output from competitors - he began using a dental drill to carve the ivory, enabling finer detail and faster production than traditional hand tools allowed. By 1914 the firm employed six skilled carvers from Erbach and exported regularly to Britain and the United States.
The interwar period was Preiss and Kassler's most productive decade. The subject matter shifted from classical goddesses toward modern women - athletes, dancers, theatrical performers. The firm's statuettes captured the energetic femininity that defined the visual language of the 1920s and early 1930s: women playing tennis, swimming, golfing, dancing in theatrical poses. Works like the Golferin series, Ecstasy, and Proserpina became widely collected. The firm produced limited editions with consistent quality control, and Preiss's attention to movement and energy gave the figures a dynamism that distinguished them from the more static academic bronzes of the previous century.
Preiss and Kassler closed when Preiss died from a brain tumour on 29 July 1943 in Berlin. The firm's output - along with work by the Romanian-French sculptor Demetre Chiparus - has since come to define the high end of Art Deco decorative sculpture for collectors worldwide.
In the Auctionist database, Preiss is represented by 17 items, all sold, with no active listings at present. The top results come from im Kinsky in Vienna and Quittenbaum Kunstauktionen in Munich, with one example at Bukowskis Stockholm, reflecting the strong Central European collector base for his work. The highest recorded sale is a Golferin figure at 25,000 EUR, followed by a Golferin im Badeanzug at 16,000 EUR, an Ecstasy figure at 9,000 EUR, and a Jugend figure at 7,000 EUR - a price range that places his statuettes firmly in the serious decorative arts tier.