Willem Danielsz van Tetrode

Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode, known in Italy as Guglielmo Fiammingo (before c. 1530, Delft — after 1587) [Dates proposed by Charles Avery, who suggests an attribution to Tetrode of a "Hercules" in the Rijksmuseum (Avery, reviewing Jaap Leeuwenberg, "Beeldhouwkunst in het Rijksmuseum" in "The Burlington Magazine" 119 No. 886 [January 1977, pp. 42-44] p 443).] , was a sixteenth-century sculptor of Dutch origin who served as a pupil of Benvenuto Cellini in Florence. On his return to Delft in the Netherlands in 1567-68, it has been suggested [Frits Scholten, "Adriaen de Vries 1556-1626: Imperial Sculptor" (Zwolle: Waanders) 1999.] that he may have trained the young Adriaen de Vries and encouraged him to go to Florence.

Willem, as he still was, is documented at the court of François I by his late teens, which provides the most reasonable place for him to have met Benvenuto Cellini, who left the French court and returned to Florence in 1545. He is documented in the Florentine workshop of Cellini in 1549-50; he was among the sculptors who worked on the marble base for Cellini's "Perseus with the Head of Medusa" in Florence. In Rome a surviving letter of Guglielmo's records Cellini's distaste and contempt for restoring antique Roman sculpture. [Martin Weinberger, "A Sixteenth-Century Restorer" "The Art Bulletin" 27.4 (December 1945, pp. 266-269), p. 266, note 6.] In about 1549 Guglielmo restored an antique fragmentary torso as a "Ganymede" for Cosimo II de' Medici. [Adolfo Venturi, "Storia d'arte italiana" vol. 10.2 (Milan) 1936:548-52, noted by Hildegard Utz, "A Note on Ammannati's Apennine and on the Chronology of the Figures for His Fountain of Neptune" "The Burlington Magazine" 115 No. 842 (May 1973), pp. 295-300) p. 300. The "Ganymede", usually attributed to Benvenuto Cellini, is conserved at the Bargello, Florence.]

In Rome he worked under the direction of Guglielmo della Porta, restoring antiquities for the Cortile del Belvedere and other Vatican projects. On his return to Florence in 1562, Guglielmo reminded Cosimo of his former work on the "Ganymede", [In a letter of 26 June 1562, preserved in the Archivio di Stato, Florence, published by Gaye, "Carteggio inedito" (Florence) 1840, vol. III:69, noted by Weinberger 1945:266 note 6; Radcliffe 1988:931] The work in question, executed under Cellini's direction and commonly attributed to him, shows uncommonly refined cutting; Anthony Radcliffe remarked "it must be asked to what extent the beautiful statue now in the Bargello is the product of the technical skill of Willem van Tetrode". [Anthony Radcliffe, in reviewing John Pope-Hennessy, " Cellini" in "The Burlington Magazine" 130 No. 1029 (December 1988, pp 929-932) p. 930.]

Giorgio Vasari records a writing cabinet adorned with bronze replicas of the antique "Dioscuri", the "Apollo Belvedere", the "Farnese Hercules" and the "Venus de' Medici" and at least sixteen other statuettes by Fiammingo; it was commissioned by Nicolò Orsini, conte di Pitigliano and completed in 1559, intended as a diplomatic gift for Philip II of Spain. The desk was eventually dismantled, and the bronzes are conserved in the Bargello (the bronzes identified by Anna Maria Massinelli in 1987 and exhibited at the Bargello in Florence in 1989, with catalog edited by Massinelli www.massinelli.com), six were included in a 2003 exhibition curated by Frits Scholten, "Willem van Tetrode (c. 1525-1580): Bronze Sculptures of the Renaissance", which was mounted by the Rijksmuseum; it travelled to the Frick Collection, New York, and brought the sculptor into some focus. [Reviewed by Vanessa Schmid, "Hendrick Goltzius and Willem van Tetrode: two related exhibitions have admirably demonstrated a refreshingly outward-looking side of renaissance Dutch art" "Apollo," March, 2004 ( [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0PAL/is_505_159/ai_n6157810 On-line text] ; [http://www.frick.org/assets/PDFs/Press_2003/Tetrode.pdf Archived Frick Collection press release] ).]

Three of the bronze fauns on Bartolommeo Ammanati's "Fountain of Neptune" that were long attributed to Guglielmo Fiammingo cannot be his, since their facture is documented as being begun in March 1571 and finished in June 1575, by which time, Anthony Radcliffe has pointed out, [Radcliffe 1988:932.] van Tetrode was back in Delft by 1566-67; there in 1568 he signed a contract for the new high altar in the Oude Kerk, which he finished in 1573. In 1574-75 he was in Cologne. [Radcliffe 1988:932; Schmid 2003:] It now appears that Tetrode was a seminal figure in introducing to the Netherlands the small-scale bronze sculpture, suited to a collector's study.

An engraving was published by Hendrick Goltzius of a design for a silver salver by Tetrode. Anthony Radcliffe explored possible connections between the two artists. [Anthony Radcliffe, "Schardt, Tetrode, and some possible sculptural sources for Goltzius", in G. Cavalli-Bjorkman (ed.), "Netherlandish Mannerism", (Stockholm) 1985, pp. 97-108.]

Until recently, little has been written in English of the enigmatic figure of Willem Tetrode/Guglielmo Fiammingo. [An article was devoted to him by Marguérite Devigne, "Le sculpteur Willem Danielsz. van Tetrode dit en Italie Guglielmo Fiammingo", "Oud Holland" 56 (1939).]

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