Workshop of Hubert Gerhard (1540 - 1620), After the model by Giambologna (1529 - 1608)

Sotheby's London, 5 December 2007, lot 37;

Where acquired.

From 1598 until 1613 Hubert Gerhard (1540 - 1620) worked in Mergentheim and Innsbruck for the Habsburg Archduke Maximilian III, brother of the Emperor Rudolf II. During this period, his workshop was creating small-scale bronzes for Maximilian's court rather than the large-scale bronzes with which he had been previously engaged.  For this purpose he was employing goldsmiths to cast figures in silver and in bronze (D. Diemer, op. cit., 2001).

This small cabinet bronze is an adaptation of Giambologna's life-size Mercury of 1580 in the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, executed for the Medici and sent to the Villa Medici in Rome. The figure rises upwards from a puff of wind issuing from the head of Zephyr below. Unlike the Medici example however, the right hand of this little figure is not pointing to the heavens but is bent over his circular winged petasus (helmet). Indeed the position of the arms is closer to Giambologna's earliest version (1563-64) of the Mercury which is in the Universitario di Bologna and illustrated by Avery as well as to the Mercury of 1565 sent as a gift to the Emperor Maximilian in Prague and now believed to be that in a Swedish private collection (fig. 128). The gift was sent at a time when Cosimo I and Maximilian II of Austria were negotiating the marriage of Francesco I, heir to the Medici with Joanna of Austria, the emperor's sister. The choice of Mercury was deliberate as it contained a personal reference for the Habsburg emperor: with the accession of Rudolf II and the move of the Habsburg court from Vienna to Prague, depictions of Mercury were popular as the emperor regarded Mercury the patron of the Visual Arts amongst the gods just as he was a patron of the Visual Arts on earth.

The alloy of the present bronze, with higher brass content, is consistent with northern rather than Italian practice. The cast is solid and finely detailed for its size: the wings on both the feet and the circular petasus are intricately worked. The curls beneath the helmet, the treatment to the eyes, the fingers and the feet are testimony to a sculptor familiar with goldsmiths's work. The balletic pose is in striking contraposto with every muscle on Mercury's back tensed and poised. Indeed the facture of the bronze can be closely compared with the 29cm high group of Mercury and Psyche included in the Cyril Humphris sale in January 1995 where it was attributed to the school of Prague and dated to circa 1600. This latter group has been recently reattributed to Carlo Pallago (1540 - 1598), Hubert Gerhard's assistant, in Diemer's recent monograph.

Carlo Pallago otherwise known as Carlo di Cesare del Palagio, worked in the workshop of Giambologna in Florence before travelling to Augsburg to work for the Fugger family later and accompanying Gerhard to Munich. There he was to execute, when in the employ of William V of Bavaria (by 1587), a life size Mercury rising from the head of Zephyr based on the 1580 model by Giambologna. In his rendition of Mercury he again uses the rounded rather than the more pointed helmet which is more often found in Italian reductions. Although Pallago worked in Munich, Augsburg and Saxony, despite entreaties from Emperor Rudolf II he is however not known to have worked in Prague.

A further comparison with the present Mercury can also be made with the similarly sized Mercury included in the Beschwörung nach Kosmos exhibition catalogue where it is described as circle of Adrian de Vries. Although the latter does not include the zephyr's head on which Mercury stands, the round petasus is again present together with a similar pose rather than that which reaches to the heavens.   

RELATED LITERATURE

C. Avery, Giambologna 1529 - 1608, London, 1987, pp.125-129; Die Beschwörung nach Kosmos, exh.cat., Willem Lehmbruck Museum, Duisberg, 1994, no. 25; Cyril Humphris Collection, Sotheby's New York, 10 January 1995, lot 51; D. Diemer, "Small bronzes by Hubert Gerhard: A review of recent Scholarship" in Small bronzes in the Renaissance, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, Washington, 2001, pp. 197 & 205; D. Diemer, Hubert Gerhard und Carlo di Cesare del Palagio, Berlin, 2004, vol I, fig. 201 and vol. II, plates 260-261a, b, cat. no. C.4; From Vulcan's Forge, Bronzes from the Rijskmuseum Amsterdam, exh. cat., Daniel Katz Gallery, London, 2004, no.34; B. Paolozzi Strozzi, D. Zikos, Giambologna, Gli Dei, Gli Eroi, exh.cat., Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, 2006, cat. nos. 52-54; W. Seipel (ed.) Giambologna Triumph des Körpers, exh. cat., Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, 2006, pp. 248-261.