Indirect lost wax cast, with thin walls. The right hand and left lower arm were joined after casting. Casting flaw in the right cheek. The calves, buttocks, back and the top of the head show patches secured with lead-tin solder, through which the core seems to have been partly removed. The surface is smooth with unusual punch marks in regular lines, following the direction of the limbs. Traces of a natural, greenish outdoor patina, covered by layers of organic coatings (wax?).
Alloy leaded brass alloy with tin and high impurities (Cu 76.83%; Zn 9.68%; Sn 3.57%; Pb 6.74%; Sb 0.92%; As 0.50%; Fe 0.97%; Ni 0.35%; Ag 0.15%).

…; donated to the museum by friends of the Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst, 1912

Object number: BK-NM-12283

Credit line: Gift of the Vrienden van het Nederlandsch museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst

This nude statue of a woman can be identified as Fortuna, the personification of Fortune, based on her raised left arm and the lock of hair blowing forward. In her right hand, she still holds one knotted end of her now missing attribute: a full-blown sail, symbol of fortune’s fickle nature. The iconography of this figure coincides with Horatio’s description of Lady Fortuna, the mistress of the sea so greatly feared by seafaring captains (Odes 1:35).

Fortuna normally appears balancing on a sphere or globe, referring both to her fickleness and her influence over the world. Here she is depicted in a forward stride. The large, filled-in holes in Fortuna’s back, buttocks and calves, along with numerous other repairs made to the bronze’s surface, indicate this specific cast was unsuccessful. To improve its appearance, the cast was extensively reworked: a cover-up rendered complete with the subsequent application of various patina layers to its surface. To no avail, however, as observed casting flaws still greatly detract from the aesthetic appreciation of this bronze.

Directly or indirectly, Giambologna’s oft-imitated Fortuna of circa 1560-70 (fig. a) served as a prototype for the Amsterdam bronze.¹¹Cf. K. Watson and C. Avery, ‘Medici and Stuart: A Grand Ducal Gift of “Giovanni Bologna” Bronzes for Henry Prince of Wales (1612)’, The Burlington Magazine 115 (1973), pp. 493-507, esp. pp. 501-03; C. Avery, Giambologna: The Complete Sculpture, Oxford 1987, no. 57. Excepting the positioning of the head – on Giambologna’s original, gazing upward and at an angle – the present bronze adheres to the overall composition of his invention. The fairly muscled corporeal type recalls the original, including the wide hips and small breasts, though much less fluid in its modelling. Casts of Giambologna’s Fortuna were made by Antonio Susini, Pietro Tacca and Massimiliano Soldani. The same figure, albeit in a slightly modified form, was adopted by Giovanni Francesco Susini for his Venus Chastising Cupid of 1638.²²Vienna, Liechtenstein Museum, inv. no. SK 542. Additionally, an exquisite Venetian statuette based on Giambologna’s invention, attributed to Tiziano Aspetti (c. 1559-1606), is preserved at the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.³³M. Leithe-Jasper, Renaissance Master Bronzes from the Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, coll. cat. Vienna 1986, no. 45.

As far as can be ascertained, there are no other casts of the Amsterdam statuette. At the onset of the twentieth century, it was still viewed as a northern Italian work from the end of the fifteenth century, and more specifically, as a bronze from the school of Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519).⁴⁴A. Pit, ‘Aanwinsten Nederlandsch Museum voor Geschiedenis en Kunst’, Bulletin van den Nederlandschen Oudheidkundige Bond 5 (1912), pp. 132-35, esp. pp. 133-35 and A. Pit, Catalogus van de beeldhouwwerken in het Nederlandsch Museum voor geschiedenis en kunst te Amsterdam, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1915, no. 53. Nevertheless, the primitive casting technique, in combination with the overall style, expressionless face and the scarcely flattering physique, make a provenance north of the Alps somewhere in the late sixteenth century far more likely. Leeuwenberg spoke of a Northern Netherlandish origin;⁵⁵J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 179. the graphic manner in which details such as Fortuna’s eyes, mouth, nipples and labia were incised in the wax instead point more in the direction of southern Germany. One possibility is that the statue served as the crownpiece of a sculptural house fountain of the late Renaissance era, made in cities such as Mainz, Nuremberg, Augsburg and Vienna.⁶⁶Cf. the statuette of Abundance by the Master of the Budapest Abundance in the Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. no. 1971.104, which served such a function, see J.C. Smith, German Sculpture of the Later Renaissance, c. 1520-1580: Art in an Age of Uncertainty, Princeton 1994, p. 207. A project centring on a maritime theme may be deemed a highly befitting context for such a figure.⁷⁷Cf. the limewood casting model of a Fortuna destined for an Augsburg house fountain in the Staatliche Museen in Berlin, Skulpturensammlung, inv. no. 8504, see J.C. Smith, German Sculpture of the Later Renaissance, c. 1520-1580: Art in an Age of Uncertainty, Princeton 1994, p. 208.

Bieke van der Mark, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 222, with earlier literature

B. van der Mark, 2024, 'anonymous, Fortuna, Southern Germany, c. 1575 - c. 1600', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/20035647