Lot 96: DUTCH, 17TH CENTURY CAST FROM A MODEL OF 1611 BY HENDRICK DE KEYSER (1565-1621)

A LEAD FIGURE OF MERCURY

measurements note
mercury: 35.5cm., 14in. base: 17cm., 6¾in.

on associated late 18th century lead flared base

PROVENANCE

Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898), Hermesvilla, Vienna;
Prince Eugen of Bavaria, her great-grandson;
sold his sale, Sotheby's Munich, 5 July 1988, lot 7

LITERATURE

F.Scholten & M.Verber, From Vulcan's Forge. Bronzes from the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 1450-1800, exh.cat., Daniel Katz Ltd., London, 2005, pp.122-25, no.38, fig.38b

NOTE

The fortuitious rediscovery and purchase by the Rijksmuseum of a bronze version of the present Mercury in 1959, monogrammed HDK and dated 1611, allowed for the Utrecht-born sculptor and architect Hendrick de Keyser to be identified as the creator of the model. It formed an important addition to the small corpus of bronzes by his hand and formed the basis for further attributions to be made. While de Keyser's style can generally be found to mirror the work of painters such as Bloemaert, van Haarlem and Wtewael, Scholten points out that his immediate source appears to be Bartholomesus Sprangers's drawing of Hermes in his Hermes, Athena and the Industrious Artist.

The Rijksmuseum bronze can probably be identified with the Mercury recorded amongst items that passed to his widow Barbara van Wildere, in an inventory taken after de Keyser's death in 1621. By 1624 a mould of it was amongst the stock-in-trade of the Delft silversmith Thomas Cruse, together with moulds of compositions by Giambologna, Arent van Bolten and Daniel van Tetrode. Two other bronze casts of Mercury are known in Braunschweig and the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The activities of Cruse and the existence of unsigned bronze replicas demonstrate that there was a market in the Netherlands for small-scale statuettes by well-known sculptors. The present statuette is a rare example in lead of this practice.

The Empress Elizabeth, affectionately known as 'Sissi', owned the present figure of Mercury in the late 19th century. Appropriately given its subjectmatter, she kept it in her private retreat, the Hermesvilla, which also featured a monumental marble statue of Mercury within the grounds.

RELATED LITERATURE
Berger & Krahn, pp.171-73, no.133; Scholten (2003), pp.66-69; Cf. Artist's studio by Balthasar van den Bossche (d.1715) of Antwerp, sold Sotheby's London, 12 December 1990, in which a cast of de Keyser's Mercury is depicted