A Wandering Musician

This statuette of a wandering musician is carved from ivory. The figure, wearing a felt hat with upturned brim, is represented singing and carrying a hurdy-gurdy under his left arm. The right hand and half of his feet are broken away. It is thought to be German, made ca. 1850. It was formerly thought to be from the seventeenth to the eighteenth century, and it is indeed broadly comparable with the German figures of beggars thought to date from the eighteenth century in the present collection. But it is considerably larger, and more clumsily carved. It is likely to be a later pastiche of such baroque figures of musicians. Despite the Spanish provenance, it is probably German, and may have been made in Erbach im Odenwald, where ivory carving flourished in the nineteenth century. A similar figure is in the Grunes Gewolbe in Dresden, inv. no. VII-142, acquired from a private collection in 1858, also thought to be mid-19th century.