Motherhood

History of the work

In the garden on the Aare side of the house at Badgasse 53 stands a figure of Enville limestone: a mother with an infant, as Wikidata describes the subject. According to Wikidata the sculpture is about 1.40 metres high on a base of roughly 64 by 63 centimetres. A photo on Commons shows it next to a slide. The city dates it to 1948.

The catalogue of works published by the family on perincioli.ch and the SIKART lexicon list a 'Mutterschaft' for the day nursery in the Matte, there dated 1947. The sources do not say explicitly whether the two entries refer to the same figure; the place and the title suggest they do. Perincioli returned to the theme several times: he made further versions in 1953 for the school square in Ostermundigen and in 1959 for the Swiss embassy in Belgrade.

Marcel Perincioli was born in Bern on 14 June 1911 and died there on 10 September 2005. His father Etienne came from Doccio in Piedmont and worked as a sculptor in Bern from 1908; the son served his apprenticeship with him from 1927 to 1930. Stays followed in Paris, where Charles Despiau introduced him to portraiture, and in Berlin with Wilhelm Otto, and later, in 1943/44, work with Germaine Richier in Zurich. The city of Bern awarded him art prizes in 1947, 1948 and 1953; from 1950 to 1954 he sat on the municipal art commission, and from 1961 to 1966 he presided over the Society of Swiss Painters, Sculptors and Architects.

Perincioli became known above all for runners, javelin throwers and dancers. In a text quoted on Wikipedia, the art historian Johanna Strübin Rindisbacher writes that he at first worked mainly in stone and later increasingly in bronze; 'Mutterschaft' belongs to the early phase. In Bern he also made the bronze doors of the Nydegg Church (1953–1955). Visitors get the best view of the figure from the stairway leading up to the garden.

Researched and summarised by Bärn Kit. Sources: Kultur Stadt Bern, Kunst im öffentlichen Raum (offene Daten) · Wikipedia (de): Marcel Perincioli · SIKART: Marcel Perincioli · Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz: Marcel Perincioli · perincioli.ch: Verzeichnis grösserer Arbeiten · Wikidata: Mutterschaft · Wikimedia Commons: Kalksteinskulptur Mutterschaft