Friedrich Sustris

Prof. Einar Perman, Stockholm

Laren, Singer Museum, Oude Tekeningen uit de Nederlanden, 1962, no. 111, repr. pl. 14

A. Bauer-Wild and B. Volk-Knüttel, Corpus der barocken Deckenmaleriei in Detschland, vol. III, part II: 'Stadt und Landkreis München. Profanbauten,' , Munich 1989, p. 52;
T. Vignau-Wilberg, In Europa Zu Hause - Niederländer in München um 1600 / Citizens of Europe: Dutch and Flemish Artists in Munich c.1600, exh. cat., Munich, Neue Pinakothek, 2005-6, pp. 158, 196 note 14

Laid down. Paper somewhat dicoloured throughout but ink & wash still good and strong. Some damage to paper in centre of sheet.
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This energetic compositional study is a rare design for one of the frescoed lunettes formerly in the East Hall of the 'Grottenhof' of the Residenz Palace, Munich, but destroyed during World War II (fig. 1).  Studies by Sustris for two other lunettes, depicting Apollo and Daphne and Mercury and Argus are in the Albertina, Vienna, as are a number of other drawings for different parts of the same, complex decorative cycle.¹ A copy of the present drawing is in Innsbruck.²  Although Sustris designed these frescoes, they were actually executed by a number of different artists: the one after the present drawing was painted in 1587 by Pieter de Witte, known as Pieter Candid.  

Sustris occupied a crucial position as chief architect at the Bavarian court of Duke William V (1579-1597), who embarked on a highly ambitious building programme through which he intended to establish his court, and the Residenz Palace that lay at its heart, as one of the grandest and most cultivated in all Europe.  Having supervised the construction of the Witwenstock (Widow Wing) for the dowager Duchess Anna, in 1581-86 Sustris oversaw the design and decoration of the four wings of the Grottenhof.  This courtyard, which takes its name from the grotto on the western façade of the Antiquarium, was one of no fewer than ten such courtyards in this huge complex.  Although Sustris made the designs for these extraordinary buildings, the gardens that stood within them, the fountains and the surrounding decorations, these works were largely executed by a team of highly skilled artists that he had assembled, Netherlandish, Italian and German masters who had all trained in Italy; the frescoes were mainly painted by Pieter Candid, Antonio Maria Viani, Alessandro Padovano, Antonio Ponzano and Christoph Schwarz.  

The theme of the eastern hall of the Grottenhof, for which this is a study, was all-conquering love: in the passage illustrated here, taken from the second book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, we read how Mercury, observing a festival in honour of Athena, falls in love with her sister Herse.  For the most complete account of the Grottenhof and the relatively few designs for it that survive, see Thea Vignau-Wilberg's extensive chapter in the 2005-6 Munich exhibition catalogue.³

1.  O. Benesch, Beschriebender Katalog der Handzeichnungen in der Graphischen Sammlung Albertina, vol. II, Die Zeichnungen der niederländischen Schulen des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts, Vienna 1928, p. 20, nos. 142-149, reproduced pls. 40-41 
2.  Vignau-Wilberg, op. cit., pp. 158-9, no. C 7
3.  idem., pp. 142-197