Vistula Bug
Warsaw Nuremberg BreslauLiegnitz
Stuttgart Jarom
Kuks Zwiefalten
Heiligenkreuz
Warta Danube
Rohr Schwäbisch Hall
Schwäbisch Gmund
Nenningen Ulm Riedlingen Steinhausen
Červený Hrádek Lake Constance
Illertissen
F R A N CONIA LOWER BAVARIA UPPER BAVARIA
Augsburg Ottobeuren
Nymphenburg
Regensburg Weltenburg
Freising
Danzig Munich Neudeck in der Au
Andechs Weyarn Constance
Steingaden Die Wies
Diessen am Ammersee Wessobrunn
Liechtenstein
Innsbruck
Berg am Laim Rott am Inn Vienna Pressburg Buda Pest
Salzburg
ěř
Oder
Danube
SWABIA A U S T R I A P R U S S I A S I L E S I A M O R A V I A BALTIC SEA Uberlingen ¨ 0 20 40 60 miles 0 100 kilometres20 40 60 80 0 100 miles 0 300 kilometres100 200 200 miles Map by Martin Lubikowski, ML Design 2022
1.2
Hubert Gerhard, St Michael, bronze, 1588. Church of St Michael, Munich.
> 1.3
East end of the church of SS. Ulrich and Afra, Augsburg, showing Hans Degler’s three altarpieces and Hans Reichle’s bronze crucifix.
De Vries and Gerhard were employed by Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria (a cousin of Arch duke Maximilian III and Emperor Rudolph II) in Munich, which became a vibrant centre of art and patronage in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century.2 The duke had an active interest in the arts, employing numerous other artists at the Bavarian court, notably Krumper and Petel. He also instigated building projects, including the extension of the Munich Residenz in 1611, and he acquired paintings by Rubens.
But this new international court style, flowering in the early years of the century, and to be seen especially in fountains and public
sculptures in Munich and Augsburg, should be considered in parallel with the contemporary vernacular art being produced in Germany. Massive carved polychromed and gilt wood altarpieces were being created by numerous artists, including Hans Degler (1564/5-1635), Christoph Rodt (c. 1578-1634), and Jörg Zürn (1583/4-1635/8) for Bavarian churches, sometimes in relatively small towns far from the big cosmopolitan cities. Such altarpieces were in the still robust tradition of medieval and later German wood carving, such as the early sixteenthcentury altarpieces of the Franconian sculptors
Tilman Riemenschneider (1460-1531) and Veit Stoss (1447-1533).3
This chapter will start by focussing on altarpieces by Degler, Rodt and Zürn, and then examine some major large-scale bronzes by Reichle and Krumper. These works illustrate in parallel ways how sculptures at this time reflected and expressed myriad traditions, and the complex society in which they were created. The chapter will close with a discussion of two prominent Bavarian sculptors of the first half of the century: Christoph Angermair (c. 1580-1633) and Angermair’s pupil Georg Petel, concentra ting especially on ivories and small-scale sculp ture. Brief biographies of the key artists men tioned in this chapter—as throughout—are also provided in the biographical appendix at the end of the book.
The Basilica of SS. Ulrich and Afra, Augsburg: Altarpieces by Hans Degler
The high altarpiece and two side altarpieces by Hans Degler at the east end of the basilica of SS. Ulrich and Afra in Augsburg flank a cruci fixion group in bronze by Hans Reichle [ 1.3 ]. All date from the first years of the seventeenth century. Degler was born perhaps in Munich, and worked with Adam Krumper, the father of the architect and sculptor Hans Krumper (for whose work see below), from 1590 to 1595 for Duke William V (William the Pious) (1548-1626; r. 1579-1597) at the court in Munich. Degler was to marry Adam Krumper’s daughter in 1590, taking over his father-in-law’s workshop in Weilheim at his death, settling there in the early seventeenth century. He is therefore known
32 CHAPTER ONE
1.7
Hans Degler, North altarpiece dedicated to St Afra (Pentecost), painted and gilt limewood, 1607. Church of SS. Ulrich and Afra, Augsburg.
36 CHAPTER ONE
1.31
Hubert Gerhard, The Virgin, Marian Column (Mariensäule), gilt bronze on marble column, erected 1638. Marienplatz (Schrannen platz), Munich.
size and shape: the faun’s pipes hanging from a tree, Apollo’s lyre, comparable background foliage, and the vivid rendering of the torso of the writhing tethered body of Marsyas. Apollo’s semi-nude body is more energetically posed in Bossuit’s work, while Permoser more clearly renders the muscles of the god’s back as he leans on one leg to start cutting into the faun’s skin. Both ivories, though cabinet-sized, are effec tively monumental, showing a mastery of the material, an engagement with a classical subject, and an implicit desire to demonstrate that sculpture on a small scale in an exotic substance can equal marble or bronze. Perhaps the very subject of rivalry in the classical myth was a playful reference to the two sculptors them selves competing against each other, and implicitly with other sculptors. Both Permoser and Bossuit were Northern artists working in Rome, and this international perspective, including their mutual influence, must have been fundamental in the evolution of Permoser’s style. Just as in the early seventeenth century the Netherlandish sculptors Adriaen de Vries and Hubert Gerhard were seminal figures in the production of bronzes in Bavaria, so here we may imagine that Permoser’s contact with Bossuit in the Eternal City was a catalyst in the maturing of his own style. Because only one of Permoser’s ivories is dated (one of his series of the Four Seasons of 1695), the evolution of his carving style in ivory remains uncertain.19 Nevertheless circumstantial and documentary proof means that some of his ivories can be approximately dated, and the sequence broadly mapped, not least those he is likely to have made in Italy.20
By 1682, and perhaps as early as 1677, Permoser was in Florence, where he worked with Giovanni Battista Foggini (1652-1725) and at the Medici court.21 One of the numerous ivories Permoser carved at the court can be dated from documentary evidence. This is the portrait of Princess Violante-Beatrice of Bavaria (1673-1731), the betrothed of Ferdinando de’ Medici (1663-1713), Grand Prince of Tuscany, dating from 1689 [ 3.6 ], and evidently done shortly before the artist left Florence for Saxony.22 The simplicity of the profile
composition belies Permoser’s sophisticated working of the material, and his mastery of small-scale sculpture. His handling of ivory must have appealed to the Saxon elector, surely constituting a reason for his inviting the artist to work at the Dresden court. However Permoser did not confine his skills as a portraitist to ivory; he also worked in marble while in Tuscany, and indeed executed a portrait in that material for a German patron. This was Anthony Ulrich (1633-1714; r. 1685-1714), Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg-Wolfenbüttel, for whom Permoser eventually made two busts: one of marble in the 1680s [ 3.7 ], and the other of alabaster, produced c. 1704/11 (both busts are now in the Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig). Neither the exact circumstances nor the dates of either of these commissions is certain. The marble must, however, have been commissioned when Anthony Ulrich was in Florence, though the timings of his visits to Italy are unclear.23 Permoser portrayed the duke with
3.6
Balthasar Permoser, Princess ViolanteBeatrice of Bavaria, ivory in silver gilt frame, 1689, height 10.5 cm, width 7.8 cm (with frame). Museo degli Argenti, Palazzo Pitti, Florence (inv. Bargello 1879, no. 80).
103 THE COURT OF SAXONY IN THE LATE SIXTEENTH AND EARLY SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES
7.11
Johann Joachim Kändler, Heron with Small Carp in its Beak, Meissen porcelain, 1731, height 62.9 cm.
Staatliche Kunst sammlungen Dresden (inv. no. PE 685).
7.12
Johann Gottlieb Kirchner, Bust of the Court Jester Joseph Fröhlich, Meissen porcelain, c. 1730-3, height 53 cm. Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (inv. no. PE 247).
initially made him practise as an alchemist, rather than employing him to discover the recipe for porcelain. But the alchemical experi ments were doomed to failure, and Böttger, along with the physicist Ehrenfried Walter Count von Tschirnhaus (1651-1708), turned his attention elsewhere. By 1708 the two men had successfully produced a porcellaneous red stoneware, sometimes now called Böttgerware. Böttger continued working on perfecting the production of porcelain after Tschirnhaus’s death. In 1709, after finding the correct china clay, kaolin, he was able to manufacture hard paste white porcelain, with the addition of feldspar (a crystalline mineral). He became the first director of the Meissen factory, founded in 1710, producing porcelain wares in imitation of silver vessels.
The flowering of figurative ceramics in Meissen came about a few years after Böttger’s pioneering discoveries thanks to two artists, Johann Gottlieb Kirchner and Johann Joachim Kändler, and their patron, Augustus the Strong.
The elector was determined to amass an unri valled collection of porcelain, both Oriental and European, and to display it appropriately he purchased and subsequently renovated the Dutch House, a grand edifice on the banks of the Elbe in Dresden Neustadt in 1717. He renamed this building the Japanese Palace. In addition to ceramics from China and Japan, the elector commissioned a vast collection of porcelain animals, birds and human figures, to be manu factured at Meissen. After Augustus the Strong’s death in 1733 his son Augustus III (1696-1763) continued the tradition of commissioning and displaying ceramics, but in a more limited fashion. Plans for further building work at the Japanese Palace were halted, and some ceramic pieces were put into storage and later dispersed.20
Kirchner’s appointment as modeller at the Meissen factory by Augustus the Strong in 1726 initiated the start of the tradition of sculptural porcelain at Meissen. Kirchner was tasked with producing large ceramic animals for the elector, to be displayed in the Japanese Palace, as a vast
238 CHAPTER SEVEN
porcelain), whom Haimhausen hired in 1754.31 The count had invested in the porcelain factory during the 1750s and had additionally acquired expertise in mining and manufacturing through extensive travels in Europe. He had been made Master of the Mint in Munich in 1751, in addition to serving as General Director of Mines. He was later to become the first president of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences in 1759/61. In 1761 the
Electoral Porcelain Factory moved from Neudeck to Nymphenburg, where it flourished and expanded with Haimhausen in charge as the director.
The principal modeller at Neudeck, and subsequently at Nymphenburg, was Franz Anton Bustelli (d. 1763), whose family were located in Locarno in the Ticino region (now Switzerland); Bustelli was first recorded at
7.18
Franz Anton Bustelli, Courting Couple among the Ruins, Nymphen burg porcelain partly coloured, c. 1760, height 26.4 cm. Bayerisches National museum, Munich (inv. no. Ker 4205).
243 SCULPTURE IN VIENNA, GURK, WÜRZBURG AND TRIER. CERAMICS.
Around 1600, a new style of sculpture started to evolve and flourish in Central Europe and in the German-speaking lands. Dramatic wood and stone figures peopled the palaces, gardens and churches of Munich, Berlin, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Vienna and Prague. These great works of art are little known outside Germany and Austria, partly because their colour and vivacity are so astoundingly different from the sculpture that was being produced in Italy, France and elsewhere in Northern Europe at that time. They are overpowering, and amongst the greatest works of art produced in Europe in the seventeenth century. This groundbreaking book explores their history and conveys their visual power.
HARVEY MILLER PUBLISHERS
9781909400955 ISBN 978-1-909400-95-5
