A tobacco jar, massive and roughly cylindrical, described as - Lot 213

A tobacco jar, massive and roughly cylindrical, described as “multi-faced,” featuring, on its body, the heads of a man with blue eyes and brown hair (including his hair, sideburns, and goatee) placed side by side; another of the same man, looking more ape-like, smoking a cigar; and a third, a real monkey, grimacing as he chews on a pipe. The wide red cap, with a green border and pom-poms, which covers these three heads, serves as a lid. The sculptor clearly alluded to the Darwinian concept of evolution, but in the opposite direction from what one might imagine, since it is the monkey who wears a wing collar and a knotted red tie, and it is the man’s neck that is adorned with a necklace. Is this simply misanthropy, or a satire targeting this theory, which was far from universally accepted at the time? Glazed porcelain, late 19th century Marked on the base with 451 (the mold number) and engraved with LS: either, according to Horowitz, for Luise Spanning, a ceramic artist at the Vienna Werkstätte who was active until 1920 or for the Kreusen factory in Bavaria or for Lancaster & Sons, Dresden, 1900–1944. Height: 14.5 cm