Hollow cast.

There are various repairs. The bust is complete with its original sandstone socle.

…; country house Meer-en-Berg (near Heemstede), date unknown; from Paulina Agneta van Lennep-Deutz van Assendelft (1835-1913), country house Meer-en-Berg, with BK-B-68-A, -B, and -C, fl. 300 for all four, to the museum, through the mediation of the dealer B. Kalf, 1892

Object number: BK-B-68-D

From the seventeenth century onwards it became prevalent in the Netherlands to consider gardens as ‘outdoor rooms’, following the Italian and French tradition. The ground plan was cleanly and architecturally designed, and statuary was erected in prominent places. A series of busts of ancient scholars or Roman emperors would often be included enabling the owner to show off his good taste and knowledge of antiquity.¹¹E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, p. 61. That idea came from the Italian studiolo, a room dedicated to art and study where series of sculptures of such viri illustri (illustrious gentlemen) were arranged.²²For 16th-century series of Roman emperors, see B. von Hagen, Römische Kaiserbüsten als Dekorationsmotiv im 16. Jahrhundert, Augsburg 1987 (diss., Julius-Maximilians-Universität zu Würzburg).

These more than life-like lead busts are exact replicas of four marble busts from a series featuring the first twelve Roman emperors and their consorts in the gardens of Charlottenburg Palace (Berlin).³³See RKD image nos. 292828 (Julius Caesar), 292829 (Caligula), 292830 (Otho) and 292831 (Domitian). The Berlin ensemble is very likely to have come from Oranienburg Palace (near Berlin), for which the Amsterdam sculptor Bartholomeus Eggers (c. 1637-1692) made a series of 12 Keijsers van goeden marmor (12 Emperors in good marble), commissioned by the elector Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg, starting in 1674, and from 1682 onwards made a series of ‘twelve Empresses’.⁴⁴A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, vol. 2, The Hague 1916, pp. 723-24, 726; attributions to Kaspar Günther (F. Nicolai, Nachricht von den Baumeistern, Bildhauern, Kupferstechern, Malern, Stukkaturen und andern Künstlern, welche vom 13. Jahrhunderte bis jetzt in und um Berlin sich aufgehalten haben, Berlin/Stettin 1786, p. 48; M. Kühn, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin 1955, p. 124; M. Kühn, Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin 1970, p. 188) and Jeremias Süssner (S. Asche, Drei Bildhauerfamilien an der Elbe: 8. Meister des 17. Jahrhunderts und ihre Werke in Sachsen, Böhmen und Brandenburg, Vienna 1961, pp. 102-03, 162-64) were convincingly refuted by Halsema-Kubes, see W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Bartholomeus Eggers’ keizers- en keizerinnenbusten voor keurvorst Friedrich Wilhelm van Brandenburg’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 36 (1988), pp. 44-53, esp. pp. 44-45 and 48-50. On the basis of the names on the pedestals of the marble series in Berlin, the Amsterdam emperors can easily be identified as Domitian (shown here), Caligula (BK-B-68-A), Julius Caesar (BK-B-68-B), and Otho (BK-B-68-C).

The portraits are in keeping with a popular sculptural tradition dating back to ancient likenesses of emperors and portraits on Roman coins. The baroque armour is the only exception. Bartholomeus Eggers based them in part on prints by Aegidius Sadeler II (c. 1570-1629), who in turn made them after the very famous series of works (now lost) of the first twelve Roman emperors painted by Titian for the palace of Federico Gonzaga in Mantua. Eggers’ derivations from Sadeler are the most marked with emperors Caligula (RP-P-OB-5059) and Otho (RP-P-OB-5063).⁵⁵W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Bartholomeus Eggers’ keizers- en keizerinnenbusten voor keurvorst Friedrich Wilhelm van Brandenburg’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 36 (1988), pp. 44-53, esp. p. 50.

It is highly likely that the lead figures were cast using the models (in plaster or terracotta) that Eggers would have made when carving the marble busts in Berlin. Various sources confirm that the sculptor often kept the models of his works. For example, the Swedish architect Nicodemus Tessin (1654-1728) describes a visit to Eggers’ workshop in 1687 where, among other things, he saw three marble statues of electors and the models of eight portraits which had already been delivered to the principal, once more elector Friedrich Wilhelm.⁶⁶G. Upmark, ‘Ein Besuch in Holland 1687: Aus den Reiseschilderungen des schwedischen Architekten Nicodemus Tessin d. J.’, Oud Holland 18 (1900), pp. 117-28, esp. p. 126. In addition, the inventory drawn up in 1681 of Eggers’ insolvent estate, described many models.⁷⁷A. Bredius, Künstler-Inventare: Urkunden zur Geschichte der holländischen Kunst des XVIten, XVIIten und XVIIIten Jahrhunderts, vol. 2, The Hague 1916, pp. 717-19. The 13 Roomse Keysers van plyster (13 Roman Emperors in plaster), which were in Eggers’ drawing room at the time, i.e. the best room in his house, could probably not be identified as the models of the life-size busts in Berlin.⁸⁸W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Bartholomeus Eggers’ keizers- en keizerinnenbusten voor keurvorst Friedrich Wilhelm van Brandenburg’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 36 (1988), pp. 44-53, esp. p. 45. These would have been for a different, smaller series. Perhaps they were the models of the ensemble that stood in the Orangerie at Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen’s pleasure garden in Cleves which is associated with Eggers (RP-P-1905-5264).⁹⁹G. de Werd (ed.), Soweit der Erdkreis reicht: Johann Moritz von Nassau-Siegen, 1604-1679, exh. cat. Cleves (Städtisches Museum Haus Koekkoek) 1979, pp. 224-27 and nos. G40a-b and G36.

It is possible that Eggers himself had arranged the models of the Berlin series to be cast in lead, but equally, they may have been done without his knowledge by a caster who had obtained the models. For example, they could have been purchased in 1681 at Eggers’ bankruptcy sale or after his death from his estate. The Amsterdam caster Bernardus (‘Barent’) Dronrijp (c. 1660-after 1705) is a good candidate for the work. Tessin praised Dronrijp in his 1687 travel journal as ‘the best and almost only iron-caster of statues in Amsterdam’.¹⁰¹⁰der beste und fast eintzige bleijgusser von Statuen in Amsterdam, see G. Upmark, ‘Ein Besuch in Holland 1687: Aus den Reiseschilderungen des schwedischen Architekten Nicodemus Tessin d. J.’, Oud Holland 18 (1900), pp. 117-28, esp. p. 127; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Bartholomeus Eggers’ keizers- en keizerinnenbusten voor keurvorst Friedrich Wilhelm van Brandenburg’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 36 (1988), pp. 44-53, esp. p. 48 and note 20; F. Scholten, ‘The Larson Workshop: Reproducing Sculpture in Seventeenth-Century Holland’, in N. Penny and E.D. Schmidt (eds.), Collecting Sculpture in Early Modern Europe (Studies in the History of Art 70), New Haven/London 2008, pp. 291-99, esp. p. 297. It is not known if there were other portraits from the same series of emperors apart from the four belonging to the Rijksmuseum. The print of the afore-mentioned Orangerie in Cleves and one of the Groot Prieel (large garden pavilion) at Zorgvliet park in The Hague (fig. a) give a good idea of the ways in which the busts of emperors were used to enhance a formal garden in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century.¹¹¹¹E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, p. 61.

Until 1892 the four lead busts stood in the garden of Meer-en-Berg (also known as Meerenberg) estate in Heemstede, a country residence that belonged to a succession of Amsterdam families from 1655 onwards: the Trips, the De Neufvilles and Van Lenneps.¹²¹²For this country estate, see, among others, C. Bertram, Noord-Hollands arcadia: Ruim 400 Noord-Hollandse buitenplaatsen in tekeningen, prenten en kaarten uit de Provinciale Atlas Noord-Holland, Alphen aan den Rijn 2005, pp. 185-87. We do not know at what point and by which family the emperors’ busts were acquired for the estate in question, or if at the time it was a complete series of twelve or merely comprised the present four. Admittedly, thanks to the contract covering the sale of the estate to David de Neufville in 1696, ‘lead statues’ were known to have belonged at the estate when the Trip family owned it,¹³¹³W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Bartholomeus Eggers’ keizers- en keizerinnenbusten voor keurvorst Friedrich Wilhelm van Brandenburg’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 36 (1988), pp. 44-53, esp. p. 48 and note 21. but in the absence of any further description it is unsure whether those were the busts in question. It is equally possible that they wound up at Meer-en-Berg at a later stage, for instance when the formal gardens were being laid out for Dirk van Lennep after a design by the famous architect Daniel Marot (1661-1752), begun in 1730, or (less logically) when they were redesigned in English landscape style by Jan David Zocher senior (1763-1817) in 1794.¹⁴¹⁴For that garden design, see D. Ozinga, Daniel Marot: De schepper van den Hollandschen Lodewijk XIV-stijl, Amsterdam 1938, pp. 126-28.

Bieke van der Mark, 2025

J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 358d, with earlier literature; W. Halsema-Kubes, ‘Bartholomeus Eggers’ keizers- en keizerinnenbusten voor keurvorst Friedrich Wilhelm van Brandenburg’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 36 (1988), pp. 44-53; E. de Jong and C. Schellekens, Het beeld buiten: Vier eeuwen tuinsculptuur in Nederland, exh. cat. Heino/Wijhe (Kasteel ’t Nijenhuis) 1994, p. 61; C. Bertram, Noord-Hollands arcadia: Ruim 400 Noord-Hollandse buitenplaatsen in tekeningen, prenten en kaarten uit de Provinciale Atlas Noord-Holland, Alphen aan den Rijn 2005, pp. 185-87, esp. p. 185

B. van der Mark, 2025, 'copy after Bartholomeus Eggers and possibly Barent Dronrijp, Bust of Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus (51-96), Amsterdam, after 1674', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200116050