Pamono György Zala, Art Nouveau Busts of Princess Sisi and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, 1898, Gilded Bronzes, Set of 2> Art Nouveau

Fabulous pair of bronze busts depicting the very famous Princess Sissi and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, made and signed by Hungarian artist György ZALA, dated 1898. One of the two sculptures is signed on the back by artist György Zala, and the other on the back has the name of the personage and the year it was made, 1898. Both have a plaque on the front attached to the marble base with the name of the artist and the character. Beautiful is the blouse of the emperor, and the bodice of the princess entirely worked in light bas-relief, note the beauty of the crown, the handkerchief on the hair all engraved by burin, very high attention to detail, a fine casting. The two sculptures depicted are the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary Franz Joseph and the Bavarian Princess of the House of Wittelsbach, Empress of Austria and Queen of Bohemia from 1854 until 1867 when she became Queen of Hungary through her marriage to the Emperor. She was nicknamed Sissi in her family, following Ernst Marischka’s 1955-57 films, the popular name Princess Sissi also spread in the press and in common parlance.

Useful information for the evaluation of the object:
A search on the internet shows us that the same pair of busts was sold at auction, back in 2010, for 2160 €, plus auction fees of 25-30%, we go to about 2750 € total expense. But it should be considered that this was a Hungarian auction house, and €2,750 in Hungary in 2010 is equivalent to a purchasing power, as of today in euros in Italy, of about €8-10 thousand. In fact, we found another auction, held at the Dorotheum in Vienna, where only the bust of Princess Sissi was fetched 35,000 Austrian schillings (plus expenses) even in 1999 when the euro was not yet there, and that would correspond to 2,500 euros today, but their purchase value in 1999 was certainly well above 4,000 euros. Finally, it should be mentioned that both the pair of busts and the single bust have a brown patina, while ours are mercury gilded, and thus their value is higher. We also found the auction of the seven heads of the Magyar that reached, in 2012, €32,000, but that was always in Hungary, where they are much more valuable than in Italy, or France or Germany.

Information on artist and/or manufacture:
György Zala (1858 in Alsólendva, Slovenia-July 31, 1937 in Budapest) also called Georg Zala, was a Hungarian sculptor. Together with Alajos Strobl and János Fadrusz, he is one of the leading Hungarian sculptors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He created many important monuments in Hungary, most notable among them being the group of sculptures depicting the seven captains of the Magyar that stand in Budapest’s Heroes’ Square.