Nessus and Deianeira

Entry

This ambitious but rather primitively executed bronze is a mirror image of one of Giambologna’s well-known compositions of Nessus and Deianeira, type C.¹ It is patently obvious, however, that the maker was not in direct contact with the Florentine sculptor, because the facial types and the style of the models betray a northern, less skilled hand. Probably in part because of the somewhat loose, almost careless modelling, the bronze was initially thought to be – and was purchased as – a work by Adriaen de Vries (1556-1626),² but this attribution lacks any foundation.³ Leithe-Jasper and Avery attributed this bronze to the South German sculptor Caspar Gras (1585-1674) for the first time in 1978, and this suggestion was later repeated by Leithe-Jasper and has been accepted ever since.⁴ Chlíbec alone looked more recently for the maker of this group among the artists at the court of Emperor Rudolph II in Prague, following Larson who attributed a stylistically comparable group of Mercury and Psyche to this circle.⁵

Besides the Amsterdam bronze there are three known versions of the Nessus and Deianeira, of which the example in the John Lewis collection is considerably larger (h. 39.4 cm) and appears to have been more carefully finished than the others.⁶ Furthermore there is a replica in the collection of Prince Waldburg-Wolfegg in Schloss Wolfegg,⁷ and one in the National Gallery Prague, originating from the eighteenth-century collection of Count Nostisz-Rieneck in Prague.⁸ In a comparison of all these versions it is noticeable that the position of the tail on the Amsterdam bronze differs from the other examples. The fact that two of the four known examples have provenances from old Central European collections argues in favour of an attribution to a sculptor such as Caspar Gras, who was active in the Austrian Habsburg milieu.

The attribution to Gras is also justified on stylistic grounds; there is a close resemblance in style to a series of equestrian statuettes of members of the Austrian House of Habsburg attributed to the sculptor, particularly in regard to the modelling of the horses’ bodies and their flowing tails.⁹ In spite of the huge difference in size there is a similarity between Deianeira and the sea goddesses on Gras’s 1622-30 Leopold Fountain in Innsbruck, who have the same types of faces, hairstyles and modelling of the body.¹⁰ Leithe-Jasper moreover pointed to the considerable similarities to a Mercury and Psyche group that he also credits to Gras, after earlier attributions to Francavilla (1548-1615), Adriaen de Vries and Hubert Gerhard (c. 1540/50-before 1621) proved to be untenable.¹¹

It is notable that Deianeira has been cast separately and mounted on Nessus’s back with a screw. A method of construction like this, which suggests economical work in batches, also occurs in the three other known versions of the statue and is reminiscent of the method of manufacture of the four Habsburg equestrian statuettes – horse and rider separately cast and screwed together. Gras is also attributed with a number of separately cast ‘spare heads’ of Austrian archdukes that can be mounted on equestrian statuettes like these. Finally this method of assembly is found in the Mercury and Psyche group mentioned above and its variants.¹² Leithe-Jasper’s supposition that this manner of mounting statuettes is characteristic of Caspar Gras is very plausible. Evidently the sculptor made use of a quite primitive, yet economically effective method of assembly in his mass-produced little bronze sculptures.

Frits Scholten, 2024
This entry was originally 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. 30