Bellowing Bull

Hollow, indirect cast with thick, even walls. Most of the flowing, fleshy modelling and detailing (including the hairy hide) was done in the wax, with little retouching. There is a large, irregular hole of c. 28 mm diameter in the centre of the belly, through which most of the core material was removed. The two integrally cast oval base plates under the hooves of the bull are a distinctive technical characteristic which is also present in a number of the other examples.¹¹V. Krahn (ed.), Von allen Seiten schön: Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, exh. cat. Berlin (Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung) 1995, no. 197. The detailed modelling is largely obscured by a layer of greenish to black paint on the body and by mercury gilding on the hooves, horns, ears and tail. Apart from the mouth aperture, no technical indications have been found to support the assumption that the bull was designed as a fountain figure, as was suggested for another version in Cambridge.²²V. Avery and J. Dillon, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.) 2002, pp. 221, 296-98.
The composition of the alloy, with a relatively large amount of lead and antimony, is similar to that used by brass workers located in the Low Countries in the first half of the seventeenth century. It could therefore very well be a contemporaneous cast.³³With thanks to Arie Pappot.
Alloy leaded brass with tin; copper with high impurities (Cu 77.32%; Zn 11.17%; Sn 3.90%; Pb 4.97%; Sb 0.83%; As 0.43%; Fe 0.74%; Ni 0.27%; Ag 0.10%).

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. 43 on p. 169

…; acquired by Dr Julius Drey, Munich, in exchange for two other objects, from the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, 1923;⁴⁴Inventory book Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Umzugsrenner, no. R.3231; Archive Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Dok.-no. 991 - Protokoll über die Sitzung der Ankaufskommission des Bayerischen Nationalmuseums am 10. Juli 1923. …; the dealer S. Rosenberg, Amsterdam;⁵⁵Note RMA. …; collection Dr Fritz Mannheimer (1890-1939), Amsterdam and Paris, before 1933;⁶⁶Photo album ‘Het huis van Dr F. Mannheimer, Amsterdam’, 1928-32, Rijksmuseum, inv. no. B-F-1963-426-7. from whom, fl. 6,684,480, en bloc, to Artistic & General Securities Ltd. as security for a loan from the Mendelssohn & Co. Bank, but kept in usufruct, 1934;⁷⁷NHA, 476, RMA Archive, inv. no. 2142, Recapitulatie der geïnventariseerde kunstvoorwerpen van wijlen Dr F. Mannheimer, undated, p. 89, no. Br 56, Artistic no. 29/33. purchased from Mendelssohn & Co. Bank, en bloc, by the Dienststelle Mühlmann, The Hague, for Adolf Hitler’s Führermuseum, Linz and transferred to Hohenfurt Monastery, Bohemia, 1940;⁸⁸E.J. Korthals Altes, Verzameling Mannheimer, Amsterdam 1974, pp. 21-22; F. Kieslinger, Verzeichnis der Restbestände der Sammlung Mannheimer, s.l. 1941 (typescript in Rijksmuseum Library), no. 538. war recuperation, SNK, 1945;⁹⁹HNA, SNK Archive, 2.08.42, inv. no. 548. on loan, with 1,702 other objects, from the DRVK to the museum, 1953;¹⁰¹⁰Note RMA. transferred to the museum, 1960

ObjectNumber: BK-16944

Judging by the various known replicas, this imposing bronze bull once enjoyed a certain renown. Besides the twelve bulls based on this model recognized up to now,¹¹¹¹J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, p. 189 for an overview; V. Krahn (ed.), Von allen Seiten schön: Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, exh. cat. Berlin (Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung) 1995, pp. 532-33, no. 197; sale London (Christie’s), 10 December 2009, no. 850. an exquisite Louis XVI socle in Avignon must be added to this group.¹²¹²Avignon, Fondation Angladon Dubrujeaud, inv. no. E 4, acquired from the collection J. Doucet in Paris in 1912. The Amsterdam cast originates from the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, where it was deaccessioned in 1923 as a doublet.

The model of the present bronze was initially linked to Giambologna (1529-1608) or an artist from his circle. Weihrauch, by contrast, rightly placed the bull in the circle of Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640).¹³¹³H.R. Weihrauch, Europäische Bronzestatuetten, 15.-18. Jahrhundert, Braunschweig 1967, p. 377. The beast’s full, ‘painterly’ modelling with its thickly furrowed body is indeed reminiscent of cattle appearing in a number of Rubens’s works with rural themes painted around 1620, e.g. The Farm (Buckingham Palace, London), Landscape with Cows (Alte Pinakothek, Munich), The Rainbow Landscape (Wallace Collection, London) or The Prodigal Son (Royal Museums of Fine Arts, Antwerp). The presence of a gilt-bronze cast of a bull in Cornelis de Baellieur’s (1607-1677) painted rendering of Rubens’s supposed atelier (Palazzo Pitti, Florence) lends extra support to Weihrauch’s attribution.¹⁴¹⁴H.R. Weihrauch, Europäische Bronzestatuetten, 15.-18. Jahrhundert, Braunschweig 1967, fig. 558.

Theuerkauff examined the possibility that the maker of the bull was the Antwerp sculptor Artus Quellinus I (1609-1668), but did not find sufficient grounds for this attribution.¹⁵¹⁵V. Krahn (ed.), Von allen Seiten schön: Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, exh. cat. Berlin (Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung) 1995, no. 197. Nevertheless, his suggestion merits consideration. Quellinus’s style clearly displays influences emanating from Rubens’s Baroque, even after his return from Italy in 1639. The stylistic similarity of several of his works to the bronze is striking, precisely when it comes to the flowing, fleshy modelling of his terracottas.¹⁶¹⁶K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, pp. 149-52. Examples of this include a Lioness Suckling her Cubs in the Leiden Collection in New York (fig. a).¹⁷¹⁷Acquired from the dealer Martin Bonham-Carter Ltd., London, after 1997. Also noteworthy is the evident agreement in head type when comparing the present bronze to that of a steer on Quellinus’s marble relief entitled Mercury and Argus in the former town hall of Amsterdam.¹⁸¹⁸K. Fremantle, The Baroque Town Hall of Amsterdam, Utrecht 1959, fig. 66.

Thematically, the bull can be readily linked to the sculptor’s existing oeuvre, which includes a small number of lively, naturalistically modelled freestanding animal figures in terracotta. In its dimensions and pose, the bronze is very similar to a signed terracotta horse by Quellinus, which bears the year 1638 (fig. b).¹⁹¹⁹Sale New York (Christie’s), 10 January 1990, no. 196, h. 28.5 cm; A comparable horse also forms the pendant of the bull in the painting by Beailleur of the so-called Rubens workshop, see H.R. Weihrauch, Europäische Bronzestatuetten, 15.-18. Jahrhundert, Braunschweig 1967, fig. 558. The gilt-bronze cast of this model that appears in Cornelis de Baellieur’s painting forms its counterpart, supporting the notion that Quellinus conceived them as a pair.²⁰²⁰Quellinus would undoubtedly have been familiar with Giambologna’s pairing of a pacing horse and striding bull from c. 1580-90. One discrepancy must be noted, however, specifically with respect to the number of surviving casts of the bull (at least thirteen versions) versus the horse (zero). This suggests that casts of the bull were also made as autonomous works.

The oval, integrally cast base plates discernible beneath the present bull’s hooves are a technical distinction encountered on several of the sculptures assigned to this group. Simple in form, similar plates can also be observed on other bronzes produced north of the Alps, including a number of works by Willem van Tetrode (cf. BK-1959-3), Georg Petel’s Three Graces after Rubens, and an elephant from Augsburg.²¹²¹U. Berger and V. Krahn, Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock: Katalog der Sammlung, coll. cat. Braunschweig (Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum) 1994, nos. 176 and 211.

The execution of a bull in bronze – hardly an elevated subject – in fact reflects the growing predilection for the low-life genre that first emerged in collectors’ circles in the second half of the sixteenth century, a development parallel to the far more evident popularity of peasant scenes in Flemish painting of the same period.

Its motivation is to be understood in terms of the artist’s desire for humoristic effect achieved through a kind of reversal of values: taking a trivial subject and expressing it in a costly and exalted medium like bronze. The bronze bull described in Cesare Ripa’s famous Iconologia, interpreted as a symbol of the concept Idolatria (Idolatry), is perhaps an overly zealous connotation when discussing a work of Flemish sculpture. Implicitly, however, the bronze possibly alludes to a number of now lost bronze bulls dating back to classical Antiquity. Pliny, for example, speaks of the bronze ox on the Cattle Market in ancient Rome, taken from the island of Delos by the Romans as war loot. Another example is a bronze heifer by the Roman sculptor Myron (Pliny 34:10 and 34:57), of which a Roman marble copy is today preserved in the Sala degli Animali in the Vatican. Like the present bull, the beast is depicted making the bellowing sound of a bull. Even if never seen by Quellinus himself – this specific marble copy was unearthed only after his death²²²²Excavated during the pontificate of Clemens XIV (1769-1774), see W. Amelung, Die Skulpturen des Vaticanischen Museums, text vol., Berlin 1904, p. 378, no. 209. – another now lost copy of Myron’s heifer may have existed in the artist’s day from which he drew his inspiration.

The bull’s rather ungainly corporeal form – not to mention his bellowing emission – likewise contributes to the amusing aspect of Quellinus’s version, in marked contrast to the grandiosity of Giambologna’s bulls. Yet it is precisely such details, like the suggestion of sound – action in stillness – that greatly enhances the work’s expression. The bull’s open mouth has nothing to do with a water fountain spout;²³²³V. Avery and J. Dillon, Renaissance and Baroque Bronzes from the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, exh. cat. London (Daniel Katz Ltd.) 2002, no. 35, esp. p. 221. its significance lies instead in its subtle reference to Antiquity. Pliny writes of the sculptor Perillus, who made a hollow bronze bull that was said to bellow, when a man was enclosed in its belly and a fire lit below (Pliny 34:89). Perhaps Quellinus’s bull signifies the artist’s attempt to rival the beast of Perillus?

Frits Scholten, 2024
This entry was originally published 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. 43

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 240, with earlier literature; V. Krahn (ed.), Von allen Seiten schön: Bronzen der Renaissance und des Barock, exh. cat. Berlin (Staatliche Museen, Skulpturensammlung) 1995, no. 197; 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. 43

F. Scholten, 2024, 'attributed to Artus (I) Quellinus, Bellowing Bull, Antwerp, c. 1640', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24530