001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 1 The Sculpture Collection in the Bode Museum Introduction 2 Germany 12 The Netherlands 92 France 100 Italy 114 Spain and Portugal 178 Index of Artists 188 Contributors 189 Visitor Information 189 Floorplan of the Museum 190 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 2 Introduction The History of the Collection In the autumn of 2006, more than The nucleus of the Sculpture half a century after the Second World Collection was the Kunstkammer, or War compelled its closure, the Berlin Chamber of Art, of Brandenburg and Museums’ Sculpture Collection could Prussia, which was housed in the once again been seen in its entirety. Berlin City Palace and whose origins Its home, which opened in 1904 as go back to the early seventeenth the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, has century. Leonhard Kern’s ivory Adam borne the name of its first director, and Eve (1646; see no. 80) was Wilhelm von Bode, since 1957. The acquired in the days of Friedrich partition of Germany after the Second Wilhelm of Brandenburg, the Great World War was mirrored in the Elector. The facial features suggest it history of the Bode Museum: until was made in connection with German reunification, its collection Friedrich Wilhelm’s marriage to was distributed between two Princess Louise Henriette of Orange. different locations in East and West The absolutist ruler was mytholo- Berlin. Artworks that remained on the gized in an iron equestrian statue by Museum Island during the Second Gottfried Leygebe, the Elector’s World War, and found their way to Master of the Mint, who portrayed the Soviet Union after the war, were him as St. George defeating a three- returned to East Berlin in 1958 and headed dragon (no. 79). Among the held there. Works that had been works from the Kunstkammer is also removed to mines at Grasleben and François Duquesnoy’s figure of Cupid Kaiseroda for safe keeping were Carving His Bow, now a mere frag- exhibited on a provisional basis, for ment, which is recorded as early as more than thirty years, in the 1689 (no. 220). museum complex at Dahlem, built The opening of the Altes between 1913 and 1916 by Bruno Museum (Old Museum) in 1830 Paul as the Asiatic Museum. Many of marked a fundamental shift in the the works deposited during the war understanding of works of art and in the tower of the Friedrichshain their function. The ownership of art anti-aircraft bunker were lost, after was no longer a privilege of abso- the bunker had been handed over to lutist rulers. Now, art was accessible the Red Army, in the two catastrophic to any educated citizen. The fires of May 1945, the circumstances humanist ideals of the middle class of which remain mysterious; others now set the tone, and the Museum were looted; still others survive as Island was seen as a free space for mere fragments. Around 1,400 works art and scholarship. It was in that of art have been missing since the spirit that a memorandum of 1829 war. A catalogue of lost artworks declared that art should “first published to mark the Bode delight, then instruct”. In the newly Museum’s re-opening documents the opened Altes Museum, sculpture of items in question. antiquity and Renaissance paintings 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 3 predominated. The recently estab- lished collection of Renaissance sculp- ture was then no more than a supple- ment to the antiquities collection. The holdings were few, consisting principally of glazed terracottas by the Florentine Della Robbia family, though they also included Francesco da Sangallo’s relief of the Madonna and the Reading Child (no. 206), which had been purchased from the Bartholdy collection in Rome in 1828. The sculptor Friedrich Tieck, then the director of the sculpture department, published the works in a small cata- logue in 1835, which can be consid- ered the Sculpture Collection’s first publication. The newly founded collection grew notably under Gustav Friedrich Waagen, the first director of the Gemäldegalerie (Picture Gallery), who acquired numerous sculptures in Italy. In 1841/42 he succeeded in buying the Pajaro collection in Venice. His account of the works that had now come to Berlin described the Berlin collection as the largest in the area of Paduan-Venetian sculp- ture. He had purchased “eighty sculp- Fig. 1 tures, most of them large-scale, in Tullio Lombardo, Arms Bearer marble, Istrian limestone, terracotta, From the Tomb of Doge etc.” which came “from the Grimani, Vendramin, photographed Tiepolo, Nani palaces, the recently before the Second World War demolished churches on Murano and Torcello, the dilapidated Scuola San Giovanni in Venice, and so forth”. Among the most significant works in this acquisition are Jacopo Sanso- (no. 200). Only fragments now remain vino’s terracotta Sacra Conversazione of Tullio Lombardo’s two arms bearers (no. 196) and Alessandro Vittoria’s from the tomb of Venetian Doge bust, Portrait of Ottavio Grimani Andrea Vendramin (fig. 1). 2 | 3 The History of the Collection 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 4 Fig. 2 Wilhelm von Bode (1845–1929) burg (no. 59). 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 5 model 4 | 5 The History of the Collection 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 6 Fig. 3 The Basilica in the Kaiser Fig. 4 The Bronze Room in the Friedrich Museum Kaiser Friedrich Museum ly 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 7 Fig. 5 The Della Robbia Cabinet in Fig. 6 The Donatello Room in the the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Kaiser Friedrich Museum 6 | 7 The History of the Collection 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 8 Fig. 7 The Simon Cabinet in the Fig. 8 The Medieval Room in the Kaiser Friedrich Museum Deutsches Museum 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 9 Fig. 9 Gallery in the newly installed Bode Museum, with late medieval French works 8 | 9 The History of the Collection 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 10 Fig. 10 Gallery in the newly installed Bode Museum, with German classicist works fter the war came 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:00 Uhr Seite 11 Fig. 11 Gallery in the newly Fig. 12 Cabinet in the newly installed Bode Museum, with installed Bode Museum, Florentine Renaissance sculpture with Italian Mannerist sculpture the 10 | 11 The History of the Collection 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:03 Uhr Seite 12 Trier, late 1th century The panels show motifs unusual both 1 Moses Receiving the Tablets in their subject matter and in their of the Law – Doubting Thomas juxtaposition. The link between the two scenes is presumably the concept Ivory, h. cm, w. 1 cm Acquired 1, inv. nos. , of divine revelation. The figures possess a dynamic tension in these narrow visual areas. Spiral columns accentuate the upward movement of Moses, to whom the hand of God is 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:03 Uhr Seite 13 passing down the tablets of the law. exists, the carver of these panels had An even more arresting impression is rediscovered classical sculpture’s made by the figure of Thomas, who, physical presence and sense of having doubted the Resurrection, is dynamic, as a means to lend powerful seen here from the rear in a confined and vivid expression to the key idea in space as he stretches to put his finger a scene. HK into the wound in Christ’s side. Working in a period from which little evidence of any monumental sculpture 12 | 13 Germany 001-192 prestel_bodeskul GB.qxd 01.10.2008 9:03 Uhr Seite 14 standing on mounds of earth, and between them a tree grows upwards, dividing the scene into two sections like parts of an arcade. Branches grow from the twisting trunk, ending in leaves that touch the acanthus orna- mentation of the frame – it is as if nature were blooming anew in the face of the unfolding story of salva- tion. HK Rhineland, mid-11th century 3 The Descent from the Cross Western Germany, c. 1 Pear wood, h. cm, w. 1. cm 2 The Annunciation Acquired 1, inv. no. 1 Ivory, h. 1 cm, w. 11. cm Acquired 11 for the Kunstkammer, Joseph of Arimathea is seen taking inv. no. hold of Christ’s dead body as Nicodemus frees it from the cross. This panel must have decorated the Mary is holding her son’s right hand, cover of a book. Due to its monu- her face approaching as if to kiss it. mental character, it occupies a stylisti- This round-arched relief panel, which cally isolated position. Both figures are was originally painted, was the wearing simple garments of a kind centrepiece of a triptych with hinged that recall the ancient world, the folds wing panels. The typological models of the cloth underlining the narrative content of the scene. The archangel Gabriel, seen in profile, is gazing fixedly at Mary, his right hand raised in a speaking gesture, his left hand gathering up his garment. The resulting tensely bundled folds of fabric, which are used to emphasize his gesture, match the analogous, though looser, draping structure of Mary’s cloak. The woman, who will give birth to the Son of God, seems to be listening to the angel’s words with her head slightly bowed; her open hands, emerging from her cloak, are also indicative of a receptive response to the message.