Adriaen de Vries

Adriaen de Vries (* born around 1545 or 1556 in The Hague; † before December 15, 1626 in Prague) was a Dutch sculptor of Mannerism, who specialized in bronze sculptures.

Life and works

After a possible training at the Dutch sculptor Willem van Tetrode ( about 1525 - after 1588), he worked in the early 1580s in the workshop of the Florentine sculptor Giovanni da Bologna. After a short stay in Rome and with the sculptor Pompeo Leoni (1533-1608) in Milan, de Vries worked for Duke Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy in Turin since 1588. In 1593 he produced the first works for Emperor Rudolf II (Mercury and Psyche, Psyche carried by putti ). For the city of Augsburg created in 1599 and 1602 in collaboration with the foundry Wolfgang Neidhardt his well- known works: the Mercury Fountain and the Hercules fountain. 1601 de Vries was appointed permanently as imperial sculptor at the court of Rudolf to Prague, where he among other things, a portrait bust of the emperor (1603 ) and z.T. rather small -scale works for the Kunstkammer created at Hradcany. After the emperor's death he remained in Prague, where he carried out orders of Emperor Matthias, Prince Ernst of Holstein - Schaumburg, King Christian IV of Denmark and Albrecht von Valdšteyn, including in 1603 a life-size bronze statue of Christ for the Church in Rothsürben in Breslau (now in the National Museum of Warsaw) as well as from 1613 to 1620 the grave monument of Prince Ernst in Fürstenmausoleum at the St.Martini Church in the city of Hagen.

Stylistic development

In his early works, Adriaen de Vries was still strongly influenced by Giovanni da Bologna, but soon tried to excel in this type of " imitatio and aemulatio " and finally emancipated itself more and more from his teacher. This was reflected in his in the contrary to Giovanni da Bologna preferred technique of direct bronze casting (or lost wax casting ), particularly his during his life and more free nascent surface modeling of the wax used for the model and also economical used subsequent engravings. During his tenure as court sculptor he was (shortly after 1600) through his Prague fellow artists (especially Hans von Aachen, Bartholomäus Spranger and Paulus van Vianen ) affected, so he temporarily appropriated a common in this environment, characterized by slimness and elegance figure type. In his late works, designed expressive, which in part were completed after his death by his assistants, as he had specifically requested in his will, he reached the threshold of the early Baroque. It is noteworthy that he himself used large format, complicated and consists of several figures of bronze groups in the direct process and beyond to cast in one piece.

Hermes and Psyche, Louvre

Farnesischer bull by de Vries ( 1614 ) ( Ducal Museum Gotha )