Search Request | Object report
Allegorical Figure Group „Skulptur, Arithmetik und Architektur“
Lost Art-ID
596678
Artist / Creator
Bertos, Francesco
Birth
1693
Death
1739
Place of activity
Rom
Title
Allegorical Figure Group „Skulptur, Arithmetik und Architektur“
Dating
1732
Object type
Group of reported objects
Material / Technique
Marble / cut
Description
A finely chiselled marble allegorical group of approx. 12 to 13 figures, with a centaur robbing a young woman, representing the true and the false; grouped around(?) it are the allegorical figures of the love of virtue, showing the tools of art.
- love of virtue, showing the tools of art;
- the perfection ("perfezione") that crowns the embodiment of sculpture,
- the deception that enhances the value of art,
- the merit that elevates the chiselled value,
- the intellect that forms the truth,
- the aritmetic and the architecture.
The work is damaged. The details of the attributes that distinguish the allegories have not survived.
Allegedly, because of the apparent impossibility of this work, the sculptor was brought before the Inquisition on the charge of having collaborated with the devil, since the human hand was incapable of producing such a work.
Provenance
In 1732, together with its counterpart, the group "Painting and Music", paid for (and in all probability commissioned by the artist) by the Field Marshal General in Venetian service Matthias Johann von der Schulenburg (* 1661, † 1747); since 1736 recorded in the inventories of his collection; in February 1739 transferred to the family palace in Berlin's Wilhelmstraße occupied by his nephew Adolf Friedrich von der Schulenburg (* 1685, † 1741); after the latter's death in the Battle of Mollwitz in possession of his brother Christian Günther (* 1684, † 1765) Fideikommiss Matthias Johann von der Schulenburg; at the time of the compilation of the printed inventory Berlin/Hehlen (c. 1750[? ]) until at least ca. 1774-76 in the family palace in Berlin's Wilhelmstr. 77; by succession to the Wolfsburg branch of the von der Schulenburg family; before 1942 Wolfsburg Palace (until 1932 Gardelegen County, Province of Saxony; then Gifhorn County, Province of Hanover; today City of Wolfsburg); In 1897 described as damaged there together with a second marble group and two similar groups of Bertos cast in bronze in Wolfsburg Palace by Parisius/Brinkmann; then moved to the newly built Neumühle Palace near Tangeln, municipality of Beetzendorf in the Altmark district of Salzwedel; probably left there in 1945 when the von der Schulenburg family fled
Literature / Source
Dokumentiert in der Sammlung des Feldmarschalls M. J. von der Schulenburg und seiner Erben in Venedig und Berlin durch eine Vielzahl von Inventaren und andere zeitgenössische Quellen; Parisius, A./Brinkmann, A.: Beschreibende Darstellung der älteren Bau- und Kunstdenkmäler des Kreises Gardelegen, Hrsg.: Historische Commission der Provinz Sachsen, Halle a. d. Saale 1897, S. 203 [als „leider beschädigt“]; Binion, A.: La galleria scomparsa del maresciallo von der Schulenburg, Milano 1990, S. 127/28; Avery, Ch.: The Triumph of Motion: Francesco Bertos (1678-1741) and the Art of Sculpture, Turin, 2008, S. 14, 17, 18/19, 43/44, 69, 78-83, bes. Diagram 2, S. 82 sowie 190, Kat.-nr. 60; Krellig, H.: Feldmarschall und Kunstsammler. Matthias Johann von der Schulenburg (1661–1747). Ein unbekannter Bestand von Kunstwerken aus seiner Sammlung im Besitz der Grafen von der Schulenburg-Wolfsburg, Wolfsburg, S. 68
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