his hands bound with a rope to the ivory tree, one leg bent behind him, with later naturalistically carved wood base.

RELATED LITERATURE

E. v Philippovich, Elfenbein, Braunschweig, 1961.

C. Theuerkauff, Apoll Schindet Marsyas. Über das Schreckliche in der Kunst. Adam Lenckhardts Elfenbeingruppe(exh.cat.), Munich, 1995, pp.97f.

Masterpieces from the Collections of The Prince of Liechtenstein, Vaduz, 1997, no. 23, pp. 78 and 79.

The base appears to have been painted but is later. The ivory tree appears to be original. The perizonium is composed of different pieces of ivory (some re-glued over time). One piece on his rear may be replaced. The top half of his left foot is reattached. There are some losses to his arrows and there are some standard age cracks. The arms are separately carved. A very fine carving.
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Lenckhardt specialized in the production of small-scale Kunstkammer works like the present carving. The attribution of this statuette to Lenkhardt is based upon its great similarity to the ivory figure of St. Sebastian in the collection of the Princes of Liechtenstein as well as comparison to other examples of Lenckhardt's work in the House of Liechtenstein discussed by Theuerkauff (op.cit.,p.132).

While the bases and trees vary in type and material and the position of the figure varies somewhat, the Liechtenstein St. Sebastian and the present sculpture are nearly identical. The faces distorted with pain, the treatment of the bodies including the stretched skin on the chest, the hands and the toes slightly curled under are all identical. Many of these details can also be seen in the ivory figure of Neptune in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (Philipovich,op.cit., fig.148,p.197).

Adam Lenckhardt was the son of a Würzburg sculptor with who♕m he apprenticed. He  travelled to Rome in 1632 and settled in Vienna in 1638. He became the most important ivory carver, next to Matthias Steinl, at the imperial court in Vienna. In 1642 he worked for Charles Eusebius, Prince of Liechtenstein, being appointed court sculptor in that year. Lenckhardt thoroughly mastered his art, as evidenced by his obsessively detailed carvings often exhibiting great pathos.