Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia

Indirect lost wax cast and (scarcely) finished bronze, to which a thick, black lacquer patina has been applied. The bronze is very thick-walled and fairly impenetrable with X-ray; an armature is present. Discernible below Tarquinius’s navel is a small projecting point that possibly functioned as a securing point for a cache sexe.
Alloy leaded brass alloy with tin; copper with high impurities (Cu 79.85%; Zn 6.31%; Sn 3.3%; Pb 6.04%; Sb 2.04%; As 0.77%; Fe 0.81%; Ni 0.68%; Ag 0.11%).

The blade of the dagger is missing and Lucretia’s left big toe has broken off. Possibly missing is Tarquinius’s cache sexe. The dark patina layer has sustained wear in various areas, including the back of the arms, the elbows and feet, and Tarquinius’s back.

...; from the dealer J. Dirven, Eindhoven, fl. 2,000, to the museum, 1951

ObjectNumber: BK-16503

This sculpture shows the dramatic climax of the classical Roman story of Sextus Tarquinius’s rape of Lucretia, a woman famed for her beauty, who ultimately comes to a tragic fate, ending in shame and suicide over the loss of her honour. The sculpture’s conception was long associated with Hubert Gerhard (c. 1540/50-before 1621), a Dutch sculptor active in Augsburg and Munich.¹¹D. Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio: Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance, 2 vols., Berlin 2004, vol. 1, pp. 405-11 and vol. 2, pp. 178-79, nos. T-L 1 to 10. Its composition was thought to have been derived from Gerhard’s colossal bronze Mars, Venus and Amor, produced in the years 1585-90 for Schloss Kirchheim an der Mindel, the rural estate of the Fugger family from Augsburg (today the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich).²²D. Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio: Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance, 2 vols., Berlin 2004, vol. 1, pp. 206-19 and vol. 2, pp. 147-49, no. G 7. Gerhard’s rendering of the same theme on a smaller scale, a unique bronze today preserved in Vienna, was seen as grounds to support this theory. Like the Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia, this group also comprises two seated figures. The general agreement between these two works nevertheless fails to warrant an ironclad attribution to the Dutch sculptor.

Contrary to the simple, harmonious form of this bronze, entailing a single upward movement and a rightward twisting motion, Gerhard’s sculptures entail a complicated linear play of intersecting diagonals and opposing stances. Stylistic differences are also discernible in the rendering of the faces, the modelling of the bodies, and the draperies. There is good reason to attribute the invention of the Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia composition to Adriaen de Vries (1556-1626),³³F. Scholten, ‘Sextus Tarquinius en Lucretia, een model van Adriaen de Vries’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 46 (1998), pp. 5-23. despite the recent suggestion that its invention was perhaps conceived by a Florentine artist.⁴⁴D. Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio: Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance, 2 vols., Berlin 2004, vol. 1, p. 411. Both figures are direct derivations of two other works by De Vries: Tarquinius’s pose is a clever adaptation of the Gladiator in Vienna,⁵⁵F. Scholten et al., Adriaen de Vries 1556-1626: Imperial Sculptor, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Stockholm (Nationalmuseum)/Los Angeles (The J. Paul Getty Museum) 1998-2000, no. 12. while Lucretia embodies a closely studied imitation of a Cleopatra by his hand, today known solely from an engraving by Jan Muller (RP-P-OB-32.223).⁶⁶F. Scholten et al., Adriaen de Vries 1556-1626: Imperial Sculptor, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Stockholm (Nationalmuseum)/Los Angeles (The J. Paul Getty Museum) 1998-2000, no. 60. The joining of these two figures gave rise to an entirely new composition.

At least ten versions of this Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia exist in bronze, with one additional limewood version.⁷⁷For an overview, see W.D. Wixom, Renaissance Bronzes from Ohio Collections, exh. cat. Cleveland (The Cleveland Museum of Art) 1975, no. 213. The bronze that was then preserved at the Cleveland Museum of Art (purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, inv. no. 1962.245), was deacquisitioned and sold at sale New York (Christie’s), 22 November 2011, no. 2 and sold again at sale London (Sotheby’s), 5 December 2017, no. 65. Variations in the quality of the casting, in the chasing and the model indicate that one sculptor could not have been responsible for the execution of every work. One must even wonder whether the original bronze ‘mother model’ made by De Vries himself is among these works. The bronze from the former Baden-Baden collection bears a number of characteristics that suggest it comes relatively close to the original,⁸⁸F. Scholten et al., Adriaen de Vries 1556-1626: Imperial Sculptor, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Stockholm (Nationalmuseum)/Los Angeles (The J. Paul Getty Museum) 1998-2000, no. 11. as does the version in Baltimore (Walters Art Gallery). With these two groups, one observes no trace of additions found on later models, e.g. a cache-sexe or the drapery fold over Sextus Tarquinius’s left upper leg. Moreover, both versions have a straight plinth – a detail highly characteristic of De Vries.

Considering the thick-walled cast and exceedingly poorly finishing, this bronze can decisively be ruled out as a work executed by De Vries himself. Its facture suggests it was instead made by a craftsman unaccustomed to hollow cire perdue casts of sculptural compositions, such as a mortar or artillery founder.⁹⁹My thanks to Arie Pappot for a confirmation of this observation based on the alloy. His cast was perhaps based on one of the plaster models known to be in circulation already in De Vries’s day. One example is ein Bild Tarquinii Superbi mit der Lucretia, von Gips in the possession of Giovanni Maria Nosseni (1544-1620), an Italian architect employed by the Saxon electors. This plaster was almost certainly a cast of De Vries’s group, perhaps coming from Alexander Colin (1526/29-1612) in Innsbruck.¹⁰¹⁰F. Scholten, ‘Sextus Tarquinius en Lucretia, een model van Adriaen de Vries’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 46 (1998), pp. 5-23; D. Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio: Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance, 2 vols., Berlin 2004, vol. 1, p. 410. In fact a personal acquaintance of the Dutch sculptor, Nosseni also possessed Ain Fauno mit Venere und Spigel vom Adrian de Vriess. In 1651, another Sextus group in the Meniconi collection in Perugia was described as Due statuette di metallo in un gruppo a sedere figurate per Tarquinio e Lucretia di altezza circa un piedi e 1/2 benissimo ripolite, mano di Giov. Bolongia o di Vincentio Danti con base di pietra dura.¹¹¹¹R. Bauer and H. Haupt, ‘Das Kunstkammerinventar Kaiser Rudolfs. II, 1607-1611’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 72 (1976), pp. 1-191, esp. p. 100, no. 1898; H. Zimmermann, ‘Das Inventar der Prager Schatz- und Kunstkammer vom 6. Dezember 1621’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 25 (1905), p. XXXII, no. 570. De Vries’s original, self-made bronze is perhaps recognizable in Ein Tarquinius und ein weiblin Lucretia, so er umbbringen will mit einem dolchen, von bronzo in Emperor Rudolph II’s Kunstkammer at Prague in the period 1607-21.¹²¹²R. Bauer and H. Haupt, ‘Das Kunstkammerinventar Kaiser Rudolfs. II, 1607-1611’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 72 (1976), pp. 1-191, esp. p. 100, no. 1898; H. Zimmermann, ‘Das Inventar der Prager Schatz- und Kunstkammer vom 6. Dezember 1621’, Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 25 (1905), p. XXXII, no. 570. Included among the bronze sculptures listed in the 1658 inventory of Feldsberg Castle – the princely residence of Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein – mention is also made of a Lucretia, so auf einem postament sitzet, undt Tarquinius sie mit dem degen bemächtigen wil.¹³¹³H. Haupt, Von der Leidenschaft zum Schönen: Fürst Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein (1611-1684), Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Fürstenhauses Liechtenstein, vol. 2, Quellenband, Vienna/Cologne/Weimar 1998, p. 379 (no. 472). This entry is certainly referring to the same model by Adriaen de Vries – and perhaps even the very same bronze – housed at the imperial Kunstkammer in Prague prior to 1621. Karl Eusebius von Liechtenstein was Oberlandeshauptmann of Silesia representing the Habsburg emperor. His father, Karl I von Liechtenstein, was a personal confidante of Emperor Rudolph II and later Emperor Matthias, and one of De Vries’s most important patrons in Prague during his period of imperial service as Kammerbildhauer.¹⁴¹⁴F. Scholten et al., Adriaen de Vries 1556-1626: Imperial Sculptor, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Stockholm (Nationalmuseum)/Los Angeles (The J. Paul Getty Museum) 1998-2000, nos. 19 and 34.

The attribution of the model of Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia to Adriaen de Vries sheds new light on the relationship between this sculptor and his fellow countryman Hubert Gerhard. This sculptural group, long thought to have been conceived by Gerhard, must now be interpreted as the result of De Vries’s successful endeavour to artistically compete with his slightly older colleague’s colossal bronze for Schloss Kirchheim and perhaps his smaller Mars, Venus and Amor in Vienna.

Frits Scholten, 2024

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 203, with earlier literature; W.D. Wixom, Renaissance Bronzes from Ohio Collections, exh. cat. Cleveland (The Cleveland Museum of Art) 1975, no. 213; F. Scholten, ‘Sextus Tarquinius en Lucretia, een model van Adriaen de Vries’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 46 (1998), pp. 5-23; F. Scholten et al., Adriaen de Vries 1556-1626: Imperial Sculptor, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/Stockholm (Nationalmuseum)/Los Angeles (The J. Paul Getty Museum) 1998-2000, no. 11; D. Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio: Bronzeplastiker der Spätrenaissance, 2 vols., Berlin 2004, vol. 1, pp. 405-11, vol. 2, p. 179, no. T-L 10

F. Scholten, 2024, 'after Adriaen de Vries or after Adriaen de Vries and and , Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia, Netherlands or Southern Germany, c. 1600 - c. 1700', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.24487