Hollow, indirect cast. Much of the detail appears to have been chased. Four remnants of the sprue system are visible underneath, including the bust’s block-shaped support. A small hole (diameter 1.5 mm) has been drilled in the back of the head, perhaps to attach a laurel wreath. The patina is a natural light-brown.

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. 21 on p. 162

…; from the dealer H. Koster, Amsterdam, to the museum, with [BK-15116](/en/collection/ BK-15116/catalogue-entry), fl. 40 for both, 1937

Object number: BK-15117

In 1973 Avery recognized this little bronze portrait of a man as the self-portrait of Giambologna (1529-1608).¹¹C. Avery, ‘Hendrick de Keyser as a Sculptor of Small Bronzes: His Orpheus and Cerberus Identified’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), pp. 3-24, esp. 5-7; C. Avery, ‘Giambologna’s Miniature Bronze Busts of Cosimo I and his Self-Portrait’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 32 (1984), pp. 55-63, esp. pp. 60-63. Until then it had been thought to be a Dutch bronze from around 1600, attributed to Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621).²²J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 230. Apart from the size, the similarity to portraits by De Keyser is indeed quite striking, although there are also obvious differences. For instance, it lacks the sculptor’s customary mannerist scrolling truncation of the chest, and the portrayal of the face is decidedly lively compared to other portraits attributed to De Keyser.³³Cf. C. Avery, ‘Hendrick de Keyser as a Sculptor of Small Bronzes: His Orpheus and Cerberus Identified’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), pp. 3-24. The sharply defined folds in the sleeves are likewise not in keeping with De Keyser’s more fluid modelling style. The attribution to Giambologna is totally convincing: the style and manufacture of the portrait are very like that of other works in bronze by the sculptor, while a comparison of the features with those in Goltzius’s 1591 drawing of the sculptor shows that the same person is being portrayed in both cases.⁴⁴F. Scholten et al., Willem van Tetrode, Sculptor (c. 1525-1580)/Guglielmo Fiammingo scultore, exh. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum)/New York (The Frick Collection) 2003, no. 50.

The reason for making the self-portrait – which is, after all, quite an unusual genre among sculptors because of the technical difficulties of representing oneself in three dimensions – was without doubt the fact that Giambologna was granted the papal honour of Cavaliere di Cristo (Order of the Knights of Christ) in 1599.⁵⁵C. Avery, ‘Giambologna’s Miniature Bronze Busts of Cosimo I and his Self-Portrait’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 32 (1984), pp. 55-63, esp. figs. 11-12. The Greek cross of this order is displayed proudly on Giambologna’s left breast. Given this fact, we can assume that the statuette must have been made in or shortly after 1599. This explains in part the association of this self-portrait – because of the material and the small size – with the art of portrait medallion making; portrait medallions were after all occasional pieces par excellence, made in small editions and intended for friends and relations. As a sculptor Giambologna evidently preferred a more apposite form of image to show off his newly acquired status as a Knight of Christ – a fully three-dimensional bust.

The small size of the portrait can be interpreted as a modesty topos, as Avery believed,⁶⁶C. Avery, ‘Giambologna’s Miniature Bronze Busts of Cosimo I and his Self-Portrait’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 32 (1984), pp. 55-63, esp. p. 63. but it also makes the work exceptionally attractive to art collectors: miniature portraits are found in art collections from the sixteenth century onwards with great regularity. Furthermore, because of its size the self-portrait refers to a modest tradition of self-portraits by sculptors on both sides of the Alps. Aside from the portrait medallions by Giovanni Boldù, Donato Bramante, Alfonso Ruspagiari and Peter Vischer the Younger,⁷⁷S.K. Scher, The Currency of Fame: Portrait Medals of the Renaissance, New York 1994, nos. 27, 33, 74. there is, for example, the lost self-portrait by Conrad Meit from the collection of Margaret of Austria in Mechelen⁸⁸D. Eichberger, Leben mit Kunst, Wirken durch Kunst, Sammelwesen und Hofkunst unter Margarete von Österreich, Regentin der Niederlande, Turnhout 2002, pp. 172-73. and the slightly bigger self-portrait by Johan Gregor van der Schardt (BK-2000-17).⁹⁹F. Scholten, ‘Johan Gregor van der Schardt and the Moment of Self-Portraiture in Sculpture’, Simiolus 33 (2007-08), pp. 195-220. Undoubtedly, Giambologna himself was aware of this pictorial tradition, although his portrait lacks the bravura of the majority of these self-portraits by sculptors.

There are at least three other casts of the bronze in existence, one of which seems to be a later seventeenth-century aftercast. Moreover an example was listed in four inventories of private collections in Antwerp in 1621, 1652, 1663 and 1668. ¹⁰¹⁰Scholten 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, p. 76. Twee figuren van Peerden, een van Stier, twee van Leeuwen, een van Moesler oft Ruyspyper, een van Meester Jan de Bouloigne, al in bronsse oft coper op ebbenhouten voeten oft pedestalen, geëstimeert tsamen op sevenhondert ende tachtentich gulden (‘Two figures of Horses, one of a Bull, two of Lions, one by Moesler or Ruyspyper, one by Master Giambologna, all in bronze or copper on ebony feet or pedestals, estimated jointly at seven-hundred-and-eighty guilders’) are listed in the estate inventory of the deceased Nicolaas Cornelis Cheeus (25 July 1621) see E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, 12 vols., Brussels 1984-2002, vol. 2 (1985), p. 173; een cleyn Conterfeytsel van Jean de Bouloigne wesende zyn eygen Conterfeytsel (‘a small Portrait of Giambologna being his own Portrait’) belonged to Peter Goetkint in 1632, together with five other bronzes by Giambologna, see E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, 12 vols., Brussels 1984-2002, vol. 4 (1989), p. 135; Le pourtrait de Iean de Boloigne en bronze de luy mesme (‘The portrait of Giambologna in bronze of himself’) was listed in the inventory of the deceased Antwerp burgomaster Jan van Meurs, dated 27 May 1652, see E. Duverger, Antwerpse kunstinventarissen uit de zeventiende eeuw, 12 vols., Brussels 1984-2002, vol. 6 (1992), pp. 296-97. See also C. Avery, ‘Giambologna’s Miniature Bronze Busts of Cosimo I and his Self-Portrait’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 32 (1984), pp. 55-63, esp. p. 62. Avery suggested a possible link between this and the example in the Rijksmuseum on the basis of its northern provenance.¹¹¹¹C. Avery, ‘Giambologna’s Miniature Bronze Busts of Cosimo I and his Self-Portrait’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 32 (1984), pp. 55-63, esp. p. 62. The four surviving castings display only minimal differences in size. One striking feature is that only the Amsterdam example has two extra small buttons on the chest, probably indicating that the original model was slightly simplified after a short time. Apart from that the four bronzes have the same high degree of workmanship in common, which makes it seem likely that all four were cast and chased by Antonio Susini after Giambologna’s wax model.

This original model has not survived, but there is a wax variant of the self-portrait in Oxford (Ashmolean Museum).¹²¹²C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna, 1529-1608: Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat. Edinburgh (Royal Scottish Museum)/London (Victoria and Albert Museum )/Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) 1978-79, no. 242; N. Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum: 1540 to the Present Day, 3 vols., coll. cat. Oxford 1992, vol. 1, no. 47. Although it is admittedly four centimetres bigger than the bronze self-portraits and attired in different clothing, as far as its pose and physiognomy are concerned it is very much of a piece with these works. What is more the cross of the Order of the Knights of Christ is also worn prominently on the chest, now hanging from a cord around the neck. Precisely because of this it seems safe to assume that this is an older design for Giambologna’s bronze self-portrait.¹³¹³C. Avery, Giambologna: The Complete Sculpture, Oxford 1987, p. 173, no. 203. The question as to whether the Oxford portrait is an autograph model, as an old Italian inscription on the base suggests, or the work of an assistant in Giambologna’s workshop cannot be answered in view of the mediocre state of the work.

The Rijksmuseum also has a unique painted plaster version of Giambologna’s self-portrait that was purchased from the same Amsterdam art dealer at the same time as the bronze (BK-15116).

Frits Scholten, 2024
An earlier version of this entry was 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. 21 (i)

C. Avery, ‘Hendrick de Keyser as a Sculptor of Small Bronzes: His Orpheus and Cerberus Identified’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 21 (1973), pp. 3-24, esp. 5-7 (reprint in C. Avery, Studies in European Sculpture, vol. 1, London 1981, pp. 175-89, esp. 176-77); J. Leeuwenberg with the assistance of W. Halsema-Kubes, Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1973, no. 230a, with earlier literature; C. Avery and A. Radcliffe, Giambologna, 1529-1608: Sculptor to the Medici, exh. cat. Edinburgh (Royal Scottish Museum)/London (Victoria and Albert Museum )/Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) 1978-79, no. 143; C. Avery et al., Giambologna 1529-1608: Ein Wendepunkt der europäischen Plastik, exh. cat. Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum) 1978, no. 143; C. Avery, ‘Giambologna’s Miniature Bronze Busts of Cosimo I and his Self-Portrait’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 32 (1984), pp. 55-63; C. Avery, Giambologna: The Complete Sculpture, Oxford 1987, no. 121; N. Penny, Catalogue of European Sculpture in the Ashmolean Museum: 1540 to the Present Day, 3 vols., coll. cat. Oxford 1992, vol. 1, no. 47; F. Scholten, Gebeeldhouwde portretten/Portrait Sculptures, coll. cat. Amsterdam (Rijksmuseum) 1995, no. 7; F. Scholten, ‘Hele en halve hoofden, kanttekeningen bij terracotta portretten van Hendrick de Keyser’, in P. van den Brink and L.M. Helmus (ed.), Album discipulorum J.R.J. van Asperen de Boer, Zwolle 1997, pp. 185-95, esp. p. 191; C. Avery, La Spezia, Museo Civico Amedeo Lia: Sculture: Bronzetti, placchette, medaglie, coll. cat. La Spezia 1998, no. 61; F. Scholten, ‘Johan Gregor van der Schardts zelfportret, circa 1573’, Bulletin van het Rijksmuseum 49 (2001), pp. 310-25, esp. pp. 315-16; 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. 21 (i); D. Gallo, ‘Small Portraits for Great Men: The Miniature Portrait Bust in the Sixteenth Century’, The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 58 (2010), pp. 56-73, esp. pp. 58-62 and fig. 1; J. Warren, ‘A Grand Master in Miniature: Giovanni Bandini’s Bust of Jean de Valette’, The Burlington Magazine 160 (2018), pp. 196-205, esp. note 53

F. Scholten, 2024, 'Giambologna and Antonio Susini, Self-Portrait, FlorenceFlorence, c. 1600', in F. Scholten and B. van der Mark (eds.), European Sculpture in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200115895