Leseprobe

123 Renaissance and Baroque The post-antique section of Dresden’s Skulpturensammlung is distinguished above all by its outstanding small bronzes. This genre, which had been popular already in antiquity, was rediscovered in Italy in the 15th century and became an experimental ground for new artistic ideas. In addition to Filarete’s Marcus Aurelius , conside- red the foundational work of the genre, visitors in Dresden will encounter brilliant small bronzes by some of the most-celebrated masters of the art form, including Giambologna, Adriaen de Vries, Gianfranceso Susini, and Giovanni Battista Foggini. While the earliest objects arrived in Dresden primarily as diplomatic gifts, during the reign of Augustus the Strong they were actively sought out and acquired for the lavish decoration of his palaces. In 1699 and again in 1714/15, Baron Raymond Leplat, inspector general of the Electoral-Royal Art Collections, travelled to Paris, where he acquired a large number of exquisite French small bronzes, which are among the best-documented of their kind. In Italy art agents in the employ of the Dresden court purchased not only works from antiquity, but also contemporary sculpture. Furthermore, to decorate the Zwinger complex, the Dresden court commissioned celebrated sculptors like Balthasar Permoser and Paul Heermann, who left their marks also in the collection. The strong emphasis on distinguished portrait busts is typical for a princely collection, and Dresden boasts a large number of masterpieces which are remarkable not only because of their creators but also because of their sitters. On numerous occasions entire collections were acquired en bloc, including that of court architect Giovanni Maria Nosseni in 1621, or that of Prime Minister Count Heinrich von Brühl in 1765. As diverse as the origins of the individual objects may be, together they form a picture of princely collecting at its finest.   |  ckg