Hollow indirect cast with even walls. Integrally cast base. Carefully modelled in the wax with little retouching. There are remnants of a translucent reddish lacquer patina under a dark brown lacquer patina which is heavily cracked in places. A twisted double wire in the right upper leg is visible on a radiograph.¹¹F.G. Bewer, ‘Towards a History of Tetrode’s Casting Technique’, in F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, pp. 93-112, esp. fig. 116.
Alloy quaternary alloy with some tin, zinc and lead and copper with some impurities (Cu 89.27%; Zn 4.73%; Sn 1.65%; Pb 3.16%; Sb 0.21%; As 0.15%; Fe 0.46%; Ni 0.25%; Ag 0.23%).

R. van Langh in F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 33 on p. 164

The weapon in the right hand is missing. The lacquer patina is heavily cracked in some places.

…; collection Karl Henschel (1873-1924), Kassel; by inheritance to the Henschelsche Familien-Verwaltung, Kassel (‘Herrn Dr. Robert’ Henschel), 1924; from which, with 11 other bronzes, DM 1,200 for all, to the dealers G. Cramer, The Hague and H. Heilbronner, Luzerne, August 1958; from whom, fl. 5,500, to the museum, October 1958

Object number: BK-1959-3

Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum

This bronze figure of a Striding Warrior was acquired by the Rijksmuseum in 1958, together with a bronze of Pallas Athena by Campagna or Roccatagliata (BK-1959-2) then thought to be a work by the Dutch sculptor Adriaen van der Schardt (1530-c. 1581). Only shortly before, the Striding Warrior had in actuality been purchased from a major German private collection as a work ‘after Giambologna’ by the dealer Cramer, who then presented the bronze to the museum as a Netherlandish work. This is confirmed in Cramer’s letter of 29 August 1958 to the then director of the Rijksmuseum, Röell, for whom the two bronzes were being held on reserve: ‘I would be greatly pleased if I could also meet with de Heer Leeuwenberg in the coming days in Delft to show him both Netherlandish bronzes, which I had reserved for you.’²²Original Dutch: _Het zou mij zeer verheugen, indien ik ook de Heer Leeuwenberg een dezer dagen in Delft zal ontmoeten om hem de beide Nederlandse bronzen te laten zien, die ik voor u had gereserveerd. Illustrative of developments in the study of Netherlandish bronze sculpture is the fact that, by 1973, Leeuwenberg no longer considered the Pallas Athena to be a work by Van der Schardt or even an Italian bronze, but instead attributing it to Hubert Gerhard (c. 1540/50-1620), with the Striding Warrior ascribed to Lorenzo Mattieli (1682-1748), an Italian sculptor active in Dresden.³³Leeuwenberg in J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 844. Enjoying broad consensus to the present day, however, is Radcliffe’s 1985 attribution of the Striding Warrior to the Netherlandish sculptor Willem van Tetrode (c. 1525-1580),⁴⁴A. Radcliffe, ‘Schardt, Tetrode, and Some Possible Sculptural Sources for Goltzius’, in G. Cavalli-Björkman (ed.), Netherlandish Mannerism, Papers Given at a Symposium in Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, September 21-22, 1984, Stockholm 1985, pp. 97-108, esp. p. 104. with the Rijksmuseum bronze rightly linked to the bronze group of Hercules and Eurytion (or Theseus and Bienor) in the Smith collection⁵⁵A. Radcliffe, N. Penny et al., Art of the Renaissance Bronze 1500-1650: The Robert Smith Collection, coll. cat. Washington 2004, no. 21. and the Hercules and Antaeus in the Victoria and Albert Museum.⁶⁶F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, no. 18. Together with the Hercules Pomarius (BK-1954-23), these four works constitute the core of Van Tetrode’s oeuvre and clearly convey the influence of the sculptor’s many years in Italy.

The identity of the nude striding man or warrior is unclear. At some point, he held a weapon in his right hand; only one of the five surviving versions of this bronze still has the original haft.⁷⁷New York, Hearn Family Trust; F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, no. 34. Hendrick Goltzius (1558-1617) based his engraving of the Roman hero Calphurnius on Tetrode’s model, equipping the figure with a sword.⁸⁸F.W.H. Hollstein, Goltzius – Heemskerck (Dutch and Flemish Etchings, Engravings and Woodcuts, ca. 1450-1700, 8), Amsterdam 1953, no. 169. Nevertheless, he turned to the same model for his rendering of Saturn, which shows the god with a sceptre.⁹⁹The Illustrated Bartsch, New York 1980, vol. 3, no. 302.037. The present bronze warrior also possibly had a second attribute, in the form of an object on the head: at least two of the six versions has a minuscule hole in the back of the head.¹⁰¹⁰P. Wengraf et al., Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection, exh. cat. New York (The Frick Collection) 2014, note 24 on p. 247. Discernible on the bronze in the Hearn Family Trust is a small circular discolouration. Conceivably, this warrior may have had a crown like that worn by Saturn in Goltzius’s engraving.¹¹¹¹S.H. Goddard and J.A. Ganz, Goltzius and the Third Dimension, exh. cat. Williamstown, MA (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute) 2001, fig. 54. Wengraf recently posited that Tetrode adapted the various individual body parts and attributes he modelled, enabling them to be used for works other than the sculpture for which they were initially intended.¹²¹²P. Wengraf et al., Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection, exh. cat. New York (The Frick Collection) 2014, p. 246. This scenario, however, is improbable: X-radiographs of three of the versions show no wax-to-wax joins between the head and body, though they do appear at the arms and legs.¹³¹³Bewer in F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, pp. 96-99 and figs. 104, 105. In Wengraf’s estimation, the Hearn Family Trust bronze, which shows clear evidence of once having worn a crown, could very well have been a Jupiter or Saturn;¹⁴¹⁴Tentative identifications made by resp. E. van Binnebeke, ‘Een godheid zonder harnas: Over Van Tetrode, Goltzius en een bronzen Olympiër’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 41 (1993), pp. 16-19, and Charles Hack, oral communication 2003. those lacking a crown, however, he identifies as Mars Gravidus,¹⁵¹⁵Previously posited by Schmidt, see E.D. Schmidt, ‘Willem Van Tretrode: New York’, The Burlington Magazine 145 (2003), pp. 680-82, p. 681. thus alluding to the possible influence of Ammannati’s more-than-life-size bronze Mars Gravidus from 1559-60, today in the Uffizi.¹⁶¹⁶P. Wengraf et al., Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection, exh. cat. New York (The Frick Collection) 2014, p. 245. Tetrode could very well have been familiar with this work, despite its limited public exposure.

A more probable, readily accessible source of inspiration for the Striding Warrior, however, was a life-size marble warrior in the collection of Cardinal Farnese.¹⁷¹⁷C. Riebesell, Die Sammlung des Kardinal Alessandro Farnese: Ein ‘studio’ für Künstler und Gelehrte, Weinheim 1989, fig. 46. Tetrode’s invention can be seen as an emulation of this classical marble, further indicating that the bronze’s model was developed during his sojourn in Italy (before 1567). In all probability, Tetrode was active for a period of time in the artistic milieu centred on the cardinal, given the manifest echoes of classical sculpture from the Farnese collection encountered in his work.¹⁸¹⁸Scholten in F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, pp. 18-20, 45, 53. Tetrode’s Striding Warrior’s pose is similar that of his Jupiter, which he produced in Cologne. This sculpture survives today in an engraving from 1574 by De Weert,¹⁹¹⁹F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, no. 40. but also in a bronze version recently attributed to Tetrode.²⁰²⁰For the version in Windsor Castle, see P. Wengraf et al., Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection, exh. cat. New York (The Frick Collection) 2014, fig. 3. All of these works demonstrate the sculptor’s predilection for rendering figures in expansive, spatial poses, with extended limbs and elaborately waving locks of hair.

The Striding Warrior’s composition also raises questions concerning Tetrode’s artistic relation to Giambologna. As with the sculptors’ respective versions of the Flying Mercury (cf. BK-1953-10), the model of the present bronze and Giambologna’s Mars are compositionally and thematically closely linked. In both cases, however, the question of who influenced whom cannot be resolved with certainty, even if Tetrode’s model – with its terminus ante quem of 1575 versus 1587 for the Mars – appears to imply that he is the most likely inventor.²¹²¹Scholten in F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, p. 53; for the earlier terminus ante quem of 1575, see P. Wengraf et al., Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection, exh. cat. New York (The Frick Collection) 2014, pp. 242, 246.

Six bronze versions of the Striding Warrior are known to survive today. Three are virtually equal in qualitative terms, two of which are held in New York private collections, and one – ostensibly the most refined in its casting and finishing – was last seen on the Paris art market.²²²²With Galerie Kugel, Paris in 2008-10; Unpublished research report by R. van Langh and F. Scholten, RMA 2010, in Object File. The three remaining casts – the present Rijksmuseum version, a bronze in Milan²³²³Milan, Castello Sforzesco, inv. no. 209. and a cast in the Hill Collection – display less refinement.²⁴²⁴Sale, Paris (Christie’s), 13 April 2010, no. 302, h. 39.6 cm, incl. base plate, 40 cm. See P. Wengraf et al., Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection, exh. cat. New York (The Frick Collection) 2014, p. 242 and notes 4-6 on p. 247. Given that the respective measurements of all these works differ only slightly, with no more than minor variations observable in the poses, a clear chronological determination becomes impossible.

Excepting the bronze from the Paris art market, all of the versions originally had an integrally cast base, as is true of a number of other bronzes attributed to Tetrode. In the case of the Milanese and Hill Collection bronzes, this base has been removed. The rather unusual inclusion of a flat, integrally cast base may indicate a common origin in one specific foundry. A comparison of all these versions also shows that the sculptor introduced minor compositional variations by slightly turning the head and torso.²⁵²⁵F.G. Bewer, ‘Towards a History of Tetrode’s Casting Technique’, in F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, pp. 93-112, esp. pp. 96-99, figs. 104-06.

Frits Scholten, 2025
This entry is an updated version of Scholten in F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 33

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 844, with earlier literature; A. Radcliffe, ‘Schardt, Tetrode, and Some Possible Sculptural Sources for Goltzius’, in G. Cavalli-Björkman (ed.), Netherlandish Mannerism, Papers Given at a Symposium in Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, September 21-22, 1984, Stockholm 1985, pp. 97-108, esp. pp. 104-05; W.T. Kloek, W. Halsema-Kubes and R.J. Baarsen, Art Before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art 1525-1580, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1986, pp. 458-59, no. 359; J. Nijstad, ‘Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode’, Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 37 (1986), pp. 259-79, esp. p. 276; E. van Binnebeke, ‘Een godheid zonder harnas: Over Van Tetrode, Goltzius en een bronzen Olympiër’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 41 (1993), pp. 16-19; A. Jolly, ‘Netherlandish Sculptors in Sixteenth-Century Northern Germa¬ny and their Patrons’, Simiolus 27 (1999), pp. 119-43, esp. p. 135; Scholten in H. van Os et al., Netherlandish Art in the Rijksmuseum 1400-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2000, no. 88; S.H. Goddard and J.A. Ganz, Goltzius and the Third Dimension, exh. cat. Williamstown, MA (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute) 2001, pp. 15, 18, 61-72; A. Blumka et al., Collecting Treasures of the Past: Recent Acquisitions, sale cat. New York (Blumka Gallery/Julius Böhler) 2001, pp. 124-25, no. 142; E. van Binnebeke, Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode: De Delftse Praxiteles: Een studie naar het leven en het werk van een zestiende-eeuwse Nederlandse beeldhouwer, 2003 (unpublished diss., Utrecht University), no. 23; F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, no. 35; Scholten in F. Scholten, M. Verber et al., From Vulcan’s Forge: Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.)/Vienna (Liechtenstein Museum) 2005-06, no. 33; F. Scholten (ed.), 1100-1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 2015, p. 251; P. Wengraf et al., Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Hill Collection, exh. cat. New York (The Frick Collection) 2014, p. 242

F. Scholten, 2025, 'Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode, Striding Warrior (or ‘Mars Gravidus’), c. 1562 - c. 1567', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200116273