Self-Portrait

Entry

In 1973 Avery recognized this little bronze portrait of a man as the self-portrait of Giambologna (1529-1608).¹ Until then it had been thought to be a Dutch bronze from around 1600, attributed to Hendrick de Keyser (1565-1621).² 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.³ 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.⁴

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 1599.⁵ 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,⁶ 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,⁷ there is, for example, the lost self-portrait by Conrad Meit from the collection of Margaret of Austria in Mechelen⁸ and the slightly bigger self-portrait by Johan Gregor van der Schardt (BK-2000-17).⁹ 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. ¹⁰ Avery suggested a possible link between this and the example in the Rijksmuseum on the basis of its northern provenance.¹¹ 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).¹² 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.¹³ 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)