Bernhard Hoetger (1874 Hörde/Westphalia - 1949 Interlaken/Switzerland) "Bonze of humour" ("Light"). Original title Cast stone, 1914/15, probably executed later. Cf. wvz. Drost no. 55, The laughing Buddha is based on the ceramic figure "Light" from the cycle "Light and Shadow Sides" modelled by Hoetger himself in 1912, which he realised as a cast stone version two years later. The figure shows a corpulent Buddhist monk or Buddha sitting on a plinth and expressing exuberant cheerfulness with his infectious laughter and hands held in front of his stomach. Hoetger was evidently inspired by a figure of the god of happiness, the semi-legendary monk Budai from China or Japan. In 1914, Hoetger moved to Worpswede, where he began to design his own home - the "Brunnenhof" - with a garden (today's "Diedrichshof" of the Bremen Home Foundation) in 1915. The "Brunnenhof" became a unique Gesamtkunstwerk ensemble of architecture, interior design, painting, sculpture, garden art and handicrafts. Hoetger had second casts of his sculptures for the Darmstadt plane tree grove made for the garden, and he also selected the figures "Anger", "Revenge" and "Light" from the "Light and Shadow Sides" cycle in order to enlarge them as cast stone sculptures to suit the purpose. Although the "Brunnenhof" burnt down to the ground in 1923, the sculptures in today's "Hoetger Garden" have been preserved to this day. Another cast stone specimen can be found in a prominent location in the centre of Worpswede in the Hoetger ensemble of the small park in front of the "Kaffee Worpswede" and the "Große Kunstschau". H. 150 cm. Cf.: "Berhard Hoetger 1874-1949. his life and work", ed. by Dr Ludwig Roselius the Younger; therein "Das bildnerische und malerische Werk von Bernhard Hoetger" with wvz. by Suse Drost, Bremen 1974, no. 55. Suse Drost only lists the piece in the park in front of the Große Kunstschau, but not the one in the "Hoetger Garden" at Diedrichshof, which she dates to 1912 with the title "Light" and specifies "cast stone" as the material. The first of these, which preceded the Große Kunstschau, was probably not erected there until 1970. /P/Provenance: North German private collection. Cast stone sculpture, 1914/15.