Globally celebrated Austrian metalworker Franz Xaver Bergman(n) is known for his bronze statuettes and figurines, which are rich with personality and alive with color.
Bergmann's father, Franz Bergmann, Sr., apprenticed under Josef Ott and became a professional caster and chaser, and moved from Gablonz, Bohemia, to Vienna in 1860, where he opened a small foundry. There, he used what he’d learned about naturally patinating bronzes and created popular figurines and sculptures. At the turn of the century, Franz Xaver inherited the company from his father and opened a second foundry.
At the Bergmann Foundry, Franz Xaver Bergmann created numerous bronze figures, employing a technique now known as “cold painting” that has since been lost to time. Bergmann’s early works were based on his father’s molds. He hired local workers to cast his own designs.
Bergmann’s works encompass an immense variety of subject matter. His foundry created bronzes of humanized animals, mythological creatures and animals in natural poses. Many of his statuettes are representative of his fondness for faraway lands and peoples, with a great number of his works depicting Native American, Asian, Persian and Arabian cultures. He's also known to have created some risqué Art Nouveau figurines — to some collectors, the Bergmann Foundry is known for its sculptures of women in various sensuous poses wearing ingeniously executed removable articles of bronze clothing.
Franz Xaver Bergmann’s recognized maker’s mark was a capital “B” inside a scrolled horseshoe, but Bergmann would employ the pseudonym "Nam Greb" — the reverse of his last name — on his racier pieces in order to keep his more conservative and conventional customers from connecting his name to those works.
Bergmann had to close his company’s doors in 1930 owing to the financial strains that came with the Great Depression. He died in 1936 before the company could open again. His son, Robert Bergmann, reopened the foundry many years later and continued to own and operate it until his death in 1954.
Karl Fuhrmann & Co. purchased what remained of the Bergmann Foundry after Robert died. Franz Xaver Bergmann’s cast-bronze figures endure to this day and are highly prized by collectors and enthusiasts of figurative art.
Find antique Bergmann Foundry decorative objects on 1stDibs.
Orientalist Cold Painted Vienna Bronze, Young Boy, Signed, Bergmann Foundry
By Bergmann Foundry
Located in Petaluma, CA
This well designed and executed Vienna bronze has a young boy resting on his stomach and enjoying what is left of a cigar. His clothes are meticulously cold painted, and this bronze...
Bronze
Cold Painted Vienna Bronze Young Boy, Signed Bergmann Foundry, ca. 1900
By Bergmann Foundry
Located in Petaluma, CA
This highly detailed cast and and cold painted Vienna bronze was made by the premier maker of this genre, Franz Bergmann. Signed with his foundry mark on the base. That style base u...
Bronze
Orientalist Cold Painted Bronze Figure of a Young Boy, attr. Bergmann Foundry
By Bergmann Foundry
Located in Petaluma, CA
This nice example of a young boy holding a stick and standing in front of a stone wall demonstrates the attention to detail that the Bergmann Foundry in Austria produced. While unsig...
Bronze
Cold Painted Austrian Orientalist Seated Young Boy Cooking, Bergmann Foundry
By Franz Bergmann
Located in Petaluma, CA
This very finely detailed cold painted Vienna bronze is the work of the Bergmann Foundry. The signature is on the top of rug he is sitting on.It's exactly the kind of quality, cold painted colors and amazing detail. We suggest you study the young boy's face, he's very alive looking. The boy sits on a straw rug...
Bronze
Cold Painted Vienna Bronze, Young Boy Fisherman, attr. Bergmann Foundry ca. 1900
By Bergmann Foundry
Located in Petaluma, CA
We just bought a large collection of Orientalist sculpture by the Bergmann Foundry, while unsigned, we guarantee it is his work. This may be the cutest, most fun piece of this rath...
Bronze
Orientalist Cold Painted Vienna Bronze Man Holding Small Scale, Franz Bergmann
By Franz Bergmann
Located in Petaluma, CA
An unusual cold painted Vienna bronze of a seated man holding a little scale in his left hand. The scale has a small weight on the scale while a banana is weighing heavier on the ot...
Bronze
Antique German Orientalist Bronze Sculpture of a Young Boy with Urn by Uhlmann
By Hermann Gladenbeck, Waldemar Uhlmann
Located in Philadelphia, PA
A good Belle Epoche bronze modeled as a young boy beside a large amphora or vase. Stylistically informed by Orientalism and various Revival movements active in Europe at the end of the 19th century. Mounted on a rouge marble base. Base bears a W. Uhlmann signature in the cast for Waldemar Uhlmann and a Gladenbeck...
Marble, Bronze
Early 20th Century Cold-Painted Bronze Sculpture "Arab Girl" by Franz Bergman
By Franz Bergmann
Located in London, GB
An excellent early 20th Century cold-painted Austrian bronze figure of a young Arab girl wearing a red shawl around her waist and eyecatching golding jewellery holding an ewer with very fine hand chased surface detail and and good naturalistic colour, signed with the Bergman 'B' in an amphora vase and inscribed Geschutzt ADDITIONAL INFORMATION Height: 10 cm Width: 3 cm Depth: 4 cm Condition: Excellent Original Condition Circa: 1900 Materials: Cold Painted Bronze Book Ref Antique Vienna Bronzes by Joseph Zobel SKU: 9133 ABOUT Vienna Bronze Arab...
Bronze
Early 20th Century Cold-Painted Bronze "Reclining Smoking Boy" by Franz Bergman
By Franz Bergmann
Located in London, GB
"Reclining Smoking Boy" by Franz Bergman An excellent early 20th Century Austrian bronze study of a young Arab boy wearing a fez and holding a cigar whilst reclining on a straw rug...
Bronze
Vintage Art Deco Bronze Figurine, Franz Hagenauer African Woman Austria, 1950s
By Franz Hagenauer
Located in Nuernberg, DE
Early 1950s Austrian Hagenauer Figurine A cute elegant early 1950s miniature figurine, crafted in Austria and exemplary of mid-century Austrian bronze design. The piece displays sig...
Bronze
19th Century Polychrome Painted Metal Figure of a Boy with Basket
Located in Atlanta, GA
An expressive and beautifully rendered Italian statue in cast metal, likely spelter, dating to the late 19th century. This life-sized figure portrays a barefoot boy in a moment of pa...
Metal
Orientalist Figural Cold Painted Bronze
Located in Palm Beach, FL
Antique orientalist bronze with an impressive composition depicting a female warrior with a spear, a parrot on a tree stump, and a monkey with a fruit bowl all with the original cold...
Bronze
