Hubert Gerhard

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Hubert Gerhards (c. 1540/1550–1620; born

artists, was the mythological gods of antiquity.

Gerhard's early patrons, the

. With Carlo's help, he also made about fifty over-life-size terracotta statues of saints and angels that line the interior of the Jesuit church.

With the financial crisis of 1597, which forced Wilhelm V to abdicate, Gerhard and most of the court's artists were suddenly unemployed. Between 1599 and 1613, Gerhard served Archduke Maximilian III of Austria, first in Bad Mergentheim and then in Innsbruck. Maximilian III commissioned small-scale bronzes, including equestrian portraits and mythological statuettes, in addition to his tomb and other large projects. The pathos that characterizes Gerhard's Munich works becomes less pronounced when in Innsbruck.

When two bronze statues by Gerhard arrived in Prague in 1602 Holy Roman Emperor

critically said of them: "the workmanship is subtle and pure, but the positioning of the figures is rather poor. Master Adriaen, as his Imperial Majesty's sculptor is far more accomplished in this." Rudolf's remark highlights the rivalry which existed between two art-loving connoisseurs, as Gerhard at the time of was employed by Rudolf's younger brother, Archduke Maximilian III of Austria.

In 1613, Gerhard returned to Munich, where he worked until his death seven years later.

Gerhard's works includes sculptures in bronze of Perseus and Medusa, Venus and Mars with Cupid, Mercury, an allegory of Bavaria, Tarquinius attacking Lucretia, St. Michael slaying the Devil, the sea-god Neptune, and in terracotta, a quartet of personifications of the seasons. Important works are located in Augsburg and Munich.

References

• Hubert Gerhards at the
  RKD

External links

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