Page of Victory of Rudolph II over the Turks by VRIES, Adriaen de in the Web Gallery of Art, a searchable image collection and database of European paintings and sculptures (1100-1850)

Pixel Size(910,735)

Victory of Rudolph II over the Turks

1609
Bronze, height: 71 cm
Hofmuseum, Vienna

This bronze relief, a counterpart to the statue of Rudolph II as patron of the arts, has a highly complicated iconography. On it appear allegories of rivers, the imperial lion attacking the Ottoman dragon, and the emperor crowning Hungary, who has been liberated by Minerva and Hercules; on a battlefield bristling with banners and weapons, cavalry skirmishes at the foot of the Raab fortress, while in a sky strewn with astrological symbols a flourish of trumpets sounds the victory. The sensitive handling of relief links it closely with the art of Cellini, and also shows that de Vries, not content with the sculpture in bronze, was trying to emulate the techniques of painting.