amatesura: Teresa Feodorowna Ries, Witch Doing Her Toilette on Walpurgis Night,1895Teresa Feodorowna
amatesura: Teresa Feodorowna Ries, Witch Doing Her Toilette on Walpurgis Night,1895Teresa Feodorowna Ries’ marble sculpture of a nude young woman clipping her toenails with a pair of garden shears catapulted her to fame overnight when first exhibited in Vienna in 1896. Some critics saw the witch’s expression as too lustful, and accused artist of using a noble stone to create a vulgar grimace.But Ries had some prominent admirers, including the great Viennese novelist Stefan Zweig and Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph I, who spoke to Ries at length during the opening, “guaranteeing good coverage in the press.” In 1938 Nazi stormtroopers ransacked Ries’s studio and in 1942 she fled from Austria, but had to leave all her works in Switzerland. -- source link