Sextus Tarquinius and Lucretia

Entry

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.¹ 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).² 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),³ despite the recent suggestion that its invention was perhaps conceived by a Florentine artist.⁴ Both figures are direct derivations of two other works by De Vries: Tarquinius’s pose is a clever adaptation of the Gladiator in Vienna,⁵ 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).⁶ 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.⁷ 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,⁸ 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.⁹ 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.¹⁰ 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.¹¹ 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 1607-21.¹² 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.¹³ 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.¹⁴

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