Style Art Nouveau / Ref.15005

Friedrich HÜLLWECK, A Fine Catch, late 19th to early 20th century

This sculptural group depicting a fisherman and a mermaid, created by Friedrich Hüllweck, was originally designed as a basin ornament.

The German sculptor Friedrich Hüllweck (1870-1945) worked notably in Dessau, Germany. He served as both a professor and director at a school of arts and crafts, likely the one founded in Dessau in 1888. From 1912 to 1922, he directed the woodcarving school in Cieplice Śląskie-Zdrój, Poland (known in German as the “Holzschnitzschule Bad Warmbrunn”), contributing significantly to its development and raising its interregional reputation. He later joined the applied arts school in Flensburg, where he also held the position of director. Among his notable works are a statue of Eike von Repko, a 13^th-century legal administrator considered a foundational figure in German law, a statue of Saint John, and, according to the Handbuch des Kunstmarktes, one of the two bears guarding the entrance to the Ducal Mausoleum in Dessau.

This sculpture portrays a fisherman and a mermaid. It is unclear whether the mermaid has been caught in the fisherman’s net or whether she has lured him and now seeks to drag him into the depths. In either case, true to tradition, the mermaid embodies both seduction and strength: while the man firmly holds her on his knee, grasping her arm and one of her tails, she reaches for his left chest and thigh, attempting to pull him along with her. She smiles, revealing her teeth, and her loose hair, crowned with flowers, cascades down her shoulders and back. In contrast, the fisherman, depicted with heroic nudity reminiscent of ancient sculptures, shows a face strained with effort. The rock on which the figures stand is covered by the fisherman’s net and scattered with marine elements such as a starfish and a seashell.

The depiction of mermaids as half-woman, half-fish creatures originates from Nordic medieval legends. These legends, like Greek mythology, portray mermaids as seductive beings meant to lead sailors to their doom. In the 19^th century, mermaids became a favored subject, especially among artists of the Jugendstil movement – the German expression of Art Nouveau that flourished in Germany and neighboring countries at the end of the 19^th and early 20^th centuries.

In 1896, Ernst Herter created a sculpture on the same subject, now located in Viktoriapark in Berlin. This piece, titled The Rare Catch (“Der seltene Fang” in German), clearly shows the fisherman capturing the mermaid in his net. He appears both surprised and delighted, while the mermaid (or nixe in German mythology) struggles to escape, reversing the roles typically seen in mythological tales.