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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 May 2012
All rulers' portraits are, in several senses, forms of representation. In the first and most obvious instance, all portraits epitomize one of the basic functions of visual art as imitation (mimesis). Portraits represent a person by providing his or her likeness. The Renaissance sculptor Vincenzo Danti (1530–1576), a contemporary of the artists discussed here, pointed to this basic mimetic function when he defined one of the fundamental forms of artistic imitation as ritrarre, using a verb related to the Italian word for portrait, ritratto. Because they are works in three dimensions, sculpted portraits may approach this end even more directly, as seen in the sculpted heritage of Charles V that is the subject of this paper. In any case, hyperrealist works of the 1970s and wax sculpture of the past, including a small wax sculpture of Emperor Rudolf II with a favorite hound (London, Victoria and Albert Museum) (see Figure 1), demonstrate that sculpture may make the effort to portray individuals as close to life as possible.
This paper is a slightly revised version of the Kann Lecture presented at the University of Minnesota in October 2011, and subsequently delivered at the National Normal University of Taiwan, Taipei, Republic of China, and as the Robert H. Smith Renaissance Sculpture Lecture at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, December 6, 2011. It reworks and changes a text that had been published in German as “Repräsentieren, Rezipieren, Reproduzieren. Herrscherporträts der Renaissance,” in Drei Fürstenbildnisse—Meisterwerke der Representatio Maiestatis der Renaissance, ed. Martina Minning, 8–25 (Dresden, 2008). Further references may be found in the works cited here, which are kept to a minimum, as appropriate to the lecture format.
2 See Danti, Vicenzo, Trattato delle perfette proporzioni, di tutte cose che imitare e ritrarre si posson con l'arte de disegno, in Trattati d'arte del Cinquecento, vol. I, ed. Barocchi, Paolo, 207–69 (Bari, 1960Google Scholar).
3 Court portraiture has engendered a large specialized literature. For a good general introduction Levey, Michael, Painting at Court (New York, 1971)Google Scholar, is still useful. For the broader phenomenon see: Campbell, Lorne, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-painting in the 14th, 15th, and 16th Centuries (New Haven, 1990), 254–55Google Scholar.
4 For this concept, see Multz, Jacob Bernhard, Repræsentatio majestatis imperatoriæ per singula ejus jura ex actis publicis (Nuremberg, 1700)Google Scholar.
5 See Hausenblasová, Jaroslava, Der Hof Kaiser Rudolfs II (Prague, 2002)Google Scholar, 416, where these terms are found: Significantly they are applied to Antonio Abbondio, along with painters.
6 The identification of the source for this engraving, which is signed by Sadeler as being after an invention by De Vries, is established by the discovery of a drawing in reverse: See the entry by Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta in Adriaen de Vries 1556–1626 (Zwolle, 1998), cat. no. 48, 254–55Google Scholar.
7 For references to the iconography and versions of the Leoni bust, see more fully the essay by Walter Cupperi, “Autorisierte Herrscherbildnisse des Leone Leoni: Die Bronzebüsten Karls V. in Madrid, Wien und Windsor Castle,” and for the Madrid bust of the emperor in particular, see Claudia Kryza-Gersch, “Die Büste Kaiser Karls V,” both in Drei Furstenbildnisse, 26–38 and 40–47, respectively.
8 Even though the specific Commodus bust illustrated in comparison with the bust of Charles V may not have been known in the sixteenth century, other examples of this sort of Herculean imagery associated with Commodus and with other emperors who made similar claims certainly were.
9 For this general theme, see Bruck, Guido, “Habsburger als ‘Herculier,’” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 50 (1953): 191–98Google Scholar.
10 See Yates, Frances A., “Charles V and the Idea of Empire,” in Astraea. The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century, 1–38 (London/Boston, 1975)Google Scholar.
11 The complicated issue of possible workshop production of these sculptures, as of the original, is left open here, as not pertinent to the questions addressed in this paper.
12 In addition to Cupperi, , “Autorisierte Herrscherbildnisse,” see for these works, and for the genesis of the sculpture, Los Leoni (1509–1608): escultores del Renacimiento italiano al servicio de la corte de España (Madrid, 1994), cat. no. 2, 110–12Google Scholar.
13 The study of aristocratic collecting in the Renaissance has lagged behind that of princely collections, but is now being pursued in several countries of Europe, as has that of aristocratic patronage. See, for example, a recent study of a Spanish example of the sixteenth century, Pérez, Noelia García, Arte, poder y género en el Renacimiento español. El patronazgo artístico de Mencía de Mendoza (Murcia, 2004)Google Scholar.
14 For these notions, see Kubler, George, The Shape of Time. Remarks on the History of Things (New Haven, 1962)Google Scholar, 39ff.
15 This bust has garnered an extensive literature: See most recently the entry by Manfred Leithe-Jasper in Einzug der Künste in Böhmen. Malerei und Skulptur am Hof Rudolfs II in Prag, 98–100 (Vienna, 2009).
16 For an explanation of this notion, see Larsson, Lars Olof, Von allen Seiten gleich schön (Stockholm, 1974)Google Scholar.
17 A similar description and this point of competitive emulation, also related to Rudolf II's competition with Charles V, are made in Scholten, Frits, Adriaen de Vries 1556–1626 (Zwolle, 1998), cat. no. 13, 140–43Google Scholar.
18 See Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, “Reading Van Mander on the Reception of Rome: A Crux in the Biography of Spranger in the Schilder-Boeck,” in Fiamminghi a Roma 1508–1608. Atti del Convegno Internazionale Bruxelles 24–25 febbraio 1995, ed. Dacos, Nicole, Bolletino d'arte 100, Supplement [1997 (published November 1999)]: 295–304Google Scholar; and specifically for De Vries, ibid., “A ‘Modern’ Sculptor in Prague. Adriaen de Vries and the Paragone of the Arts,” in Festschrift für Konrad Oberhuber, ed. Gnann, Achim et al. , 283–93 (Milan, 2000)Google Scholar, with references to other approaches to this topic.
19 See Mulcahy, Rosemarie, “Adriaen de Vries in the workshop of Pompeo Leoni,” in Philip II of Spain. Patron of the Arts, 217–28 (Dublin, 2004)Google Scholar.
20 This argument was first made in Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta “The Kunstkammer as a Form of Representatio: Remarks on the Collections of Rudolf II,” Art Journal 38 (1978): 22–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar. (republished in Grasping the World, ed. Preziosi, Daniel and Farago, Claire, 526–37 (Aldershot, 2004)Google Scholar. See also Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, The Mastery of Nature. Aspects of Art, Science, and Humanism in the Renaissance (Princeton, 1993), 174–94Google Scholar. For the position of the busts in the Kunstkammer, see Adriaen de Vries, 140.
21 For this bust, see most recently the entries by Scherner, Antje in Princely Splendor. The Dresden Court 1580–1620, ed. Syndram, Dirk et al. , 104–105 (New York/Dresden, 2004)Google Scholar, obj. nr. 3 in the catalogue, and by Martin Minning in Drei Furstenbildnisse, 56–64. It is not clear if De Vries could have known that Christian II was clean-shaven when he made his bust: He appears so on medals and prints of 1601 and 1602: See Minning, 58. Regardless of this knowledge, the portrait shows the duke at an earlier age than he appeared when it was given.
22 See Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, Variations on the Imperial Theme in the Age of Maximilian II and Rudolf II (New York/London, 1978), 111–12Google Scholar.
23 Ibid., 111.
24 Ibid., 112.
25 For the information in these paragraphs, see Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, “Arcimboldo and the Elector of Saxony,” in Scambio culturale con il nemico religioso. Italia e Sassonia attorno 1600, ed. Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille, 27–36 (Rome, 2007)Google Scholar. See further for Arcimboldo and nature studies, idem., Arcimboldo: Visual Jokes, Natural History, and Still-Life Painting (Chicago/London, 2009)Google Scholar.
26 See, for example, Rudolf, Karl, “Die Kunstbestrebungen Kaiser Maximilians II. im Spannungsfeld zwischen Madrid und Wien. Untersuchungen zu den Sammlungen der österreichischen und spanischen Habsubrger,” Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen in Wien 91 (1996): 183–87Google Scholar. In the Spanish instances, some of these may have been negotiated by Arcimboldo himself.
27 The discussion of this bronze, and the significance of its hanging, follows the interpretation of Scholten, Frits in Adriaen de Vries 1556–1626, ed. Scholten, Frits, 172–76 (Amsterdam etc., 1999), no. 22Google Scholar, where further references may be found.
28 For this relief, see Scholten, ibid., 175–77, whose interpretation of the sculpture in turn follows that of Kaufmann, Thomas DaCosta, The School of Prague. Painting at the Court of Rudolf II (Chicago/London, 1988), 7–8, 266Google Scholar.
29 See Scholten, ibid., no. 18, 159–61, which again relies in part on Kaufman, School of Prague.
30 Missing since 1945, this statuette has recently returned to the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum. For a preliminary account, see Larsson, Lars Olof, Adrian de Vries. Adrianus Fries Hageinsis Batavvs 1546–1626 (Vienna/Munich, 1967), 44Google Scholar. The general context of this work is discussed in Hofkunst der Spätrenaissance. Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel und das kaiserliche Prag um 1600, exhibition catalogue (Braunschweig, 1998)Google Scholar.
