Bust of Mars
Pierre Puget (1620–1694)
2nd half of the 17th century
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Pierre Puget was one of the most extravagantly versatile artists of the seventeenth century. He was an architect, a painter, a draughtsman with a particular penchant for marine scenes featuring warships, but above all he was a major sculptor. His large-scale marble ‘Milon of Crotona’ of 1683 (now in the Louvre) was executed for Versailles, but more generally he did not enjoy great success either at court or in Paris, where his boldly baroque manner was against the classical grain of the times. In consequence, he worked mostly in the south of France and Genoa, where his monumental religious masterpiece, a ‘Saint Sebastian’ in the church of Santa Maria in Carignano, remains to this day.
This extremely powerful, almost forbidding pair of bronze busts (SK 1473 and SK 1474), which are especially notable for their knotted brows and expressive hair and beards, has been convincingly connected with his name, above all on the basis of their stylistic links with a second pair of busts in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg. They would all seem to date from the latter part of his career, when he returned to the theme of the ‘all’antica’ bust which had fascinated him in the 1660s. Another case in point, in that instance in marble, is a bust of ‘Cato’ of broadly comparable dimensions in the Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts in Lyon. Unlike the ‘Cato’, which is inscribed with his name on the socle, the identities of the two bearded men represented in the Princely Collections’ busts are not inscribed by the artist.
- Material/technique
- Bronze with black patina
- Measurements
- 44 × 39 × 28 cm, 58.0 cm incl. base
- Acquisition
- acquired in 2005 by Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein
- Artists/makers/authors
- Pierre Puget
Klaus Herding, Pierre Puget, in: Jane Turner (Hg.), The Dictionary of Art, London–New York 1996, Bd. 25, 704-710
Klaus Herding, Pierre Puget. Das bildnerische Werk, Berlin 1970
Ausst.-Kat. Pierre Puget, peintre, sculpteur, architecte, 1620-1694, Marie-Paule Vial (Hg.), Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille 28.10.1994–30.1.1995; Centre de la Vieille Charité, Marseille 28.10.1994–30.1.1995; Palazzo Ducale, Genua 4.3.1995–4.6.1995, erschienen Marseilles 1994
Antonia Boström, The encyclopedia of sculpture, 3 Bde., New York 2004, Bd. 3, S. 1371–1374
Ausst.-Kat. Les Bronzes du Prince de Liechtenstein. Chefs-d'oeuvre de la Renaissance et du Baroque, Alexis Kugel (Hg.), Galerie J. Kugel, Paris 10.9.2008–7.11.2008, erschienen Paris 2008, S. 113, Abb. S. 78, Farbtafel 39, Kat. 39
Ausst.-Kat. Der Fürst als Sammler. Neuerwerbungen unter Hans-Adam II. von und zu Liechtenstein, Johann Kräftner (Hg.), Liechtenstein Museum, Wien 12.2.2010–24.8.2010, erschienen Wien 2010, Abb. S. 270
Ausst.-Kat. Splendeurs des Collections du Prince de Liechtenstein / Splendours of the Collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein, Alexandra Hanzl, Kathrine Klopf-Weiss, Johann Kräftner, Brigitte Lackner, Michael Schweller, Arthur Stögmann, Johann Kräftner, Caroline Messensee (Hg.), Palais Lumière, Evian 4.6.2011–2.10.2011, erschienen Montreuil 2011, Abb. 144
Ausst.-Kat. Gegossen für die Ewigkeit. Die Bronzen der Fürsten von Liechtenstein. Eine Ausstellung in der Reihe MÄRZ IM PALAIS im Gartenpalais Liechtenstein, Alexandra Hanzl, Johann Kräftner, Katharina Leithner, Arthur Stögmann, Johann Kräftner (Hg.), Gartenpalais Liechtenstein, Wien 1.–31.3.2023, erschienen Wien 2023, S. 260–261, Kat.-Nr. 116
