LES BRONZES DU PRINCE DE LIECHTENSTEIN
en marbre comme le buste de l’Annonciation de Guidi et l’Eros et Anteros de l’Algarde. Une approche autrement plus réaliste caractérise les deux bustes d’hommes colériques de Pierre Puget dont le style offre un trait d’union entre l’Italie et la France. Les deux bustes de Thétis et Apollon par Robert Le Lorrain et le Marsyas de Pierre Ier Legros se rattachent aussi à ce courant artistique qui se développe en importance dans les collections princières.
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crowning the Badminton Cabinet are another masterpiece of the Florentine Baroque, hitherto underrated. Recent purchases in this field include sculptures in other materials such as the large Doccia porcelain figure of Paris after Giuseppe Piamontini. The reigning Prince has also been carefully developing the collection to include examples by Roman artists as well as artists from northern Italy influenced by the French. With Domenico Guidi’s powerful Bust of Pope Alexander VIII, the collections made an incursion into Roman territory, already represented by two key works of art by François Duquesnoy, Apollo and Cupid and Mercury, as well as by Soldani’s casts after the Anima Beata and Anima Dannata by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. This field has been further strengthened by the acquisitions of masterpieces in marble such as Guidi’s bust of the Annunciata and Algardi’s Eros and Anteros.
fig.1. Le palais-jardin du Rossau à Vienne qui abrite aujourd’hui le Liechtenstein Museum.
Much more realistic are the two busts of angry men by Pierre Puget which stylistically fall between Italy and France. The two busts of Thetis and Apollo by Robert Le Lorrain and the Marsyas by Pierre Legros the Younger also belong to this school, which has started to play an ever more important role in the Princely Collections.
L’immense intérêt que les princes portaient aux bronzes trouve sa meilleure illustration dans les deux lieux successifs de présentation des collections et la place qu’ils y occupaient. Dans l’autre palais de la famille que fit construire Johann Adam Andreas Ier vers 1700, situé au cœur de Vienne dans la Bankgasse, le prince aménagea sa collection à l’étage noble, spécialement conçu pour mettre en valeur les bronzes de manière théâtrale.
How intensely the Princes were interested in bronzes is best illustrated by the two successive locations where they were displayed and the important role they played in the installations. In the City Palace in the heart of Vienna, built by Johann Adam Andreas I around 1700 in the Bankgasse, the Prince presented his collection on a whole “beletage” in theatrical fashion, with an emphasis on the presentation of the bronzes.