8329 - Reuter, Erich Fritz

Reuter, Erich Fritz Saint Barbara Bronze with a golden-brown patina. 1968. 34 x 20 x 14 cm. Monogrammed "(E)FR" on the left side; on the reverse, the foundry mark "Guss Barth Berlin." Karpen 170B and Supplement No. 170. Erich Fritz Reuter’s Saint Barbara, patron saint of miners, has stood as a large sculpture—2 meters tall—at the Technical University of Berlin since 1970. A special postmark featuring the outline of the sculpture was even issued based on this motif. The bronze is often confused with the similar motif of Reuters’ figurehead, which is housed at the German Embassy in Brazil. A magnificent, early cast by Barth Berlin with no known edition. According to the online supplement to the catalog raisonné, the edition is said to have consisted of ten copies; however, only five copies are known to exist so far, four of which are unnumbered. The copy presented here is explicitly mentioned there as an early copy (erich-fritz-reuter.de/wvz, accessed online on October 2, 2026). Provenance: Leo Spik Berlin, auction September 27, 2018, Lot 477 (listed there as “figurehead”) Private collection, Berlin - Please request condition reports for the lots, as the condition is usually not specified in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.