Bartholomeus Eggers

Relief by Eggers on the city scales in Gouda

Bartholomeus Eggers (* around 1637 in Amsterdam ; † before February 23, 1692 ) was a Dutch sculptor of the Golden Age . He is considered the most important contemporary competitor of Rombout Verhulst , but he was qualitatively inferior.

Life

Eggers studied with the Flemish sculptor Peter Verbruggen in Antwerp and went to Amsterdam around 1650. Here he worked under Artus Quellinus , a brother-in-law of Verbruggen, on the decoration of the new town hall Paleis op de Dam , possibly also on the grave monument of Field Marshal Otto von Sparr in the Marienkirche in Berlin , another commission that Quellinus and his colleagues did during this time carried out. In 1663 Eggers joined the Amsterdam guild and started his own job. In 1665 he moved to The Hague , where he became a member of the local guild. From 1665 to 1667 he made the large grave monument for Jacob van Wassenaer Obdam in the Hague City Church based on a design by Cornelis Mininckx . He also created a relief on the city ​​scales in Gouda and added a picture to the tomb created by Rombout Verhulst in the church at Midwolde .

He received most of the commissions from Friedrich Wilhelm . For the Berlin City Palace , he created 15 larger-than-life marble statues of the 11 Electors of Brandenburg and 4 Emperors ( Caesar , Konstantin , Karl , Rudolf I ), most of which are now located in Sanssouci Palace in Potsdam . Among other things, 24 marble busts of the Roman emperors and their wives were created for Oranienburg Castle . The busts were placed in the palace gardens of Charlottenburg Palace , where there are now casts. The originals were dismantled in 1989 because of massive environmental damage and taken to the depot. There, in the roundabout behind the orangery , there is also Minerva (Athene), a statue made of cast zinc with the facial features of Sophie Charlotte, created by him in 1682 . The figure was erected in the palace gardens in 1740 and, after damage, was removed in 1989 and replaced by a copy made by Heinrich Kube and Dietrich Starke.

Another important client of Eggers was Johan Maurits van Nassau-Siegen , the builder of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, for whom he made a number of statues.

literature

• Martin Wackernagel : Eggers, Bartholomeus . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 10 : Dubolon – Erlwein . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1914, p. 376–377 ( Text Archive - Internet Archive ).
• Michael North : The Golden Age. Art and Commerce in 17th Century Dutch Painting. Böhlau, Cologne 2001, ISBN 3-412-13700-6 (former title “Art and Commerce in the Golden Age”).
• Ulrich Becker: Eggers, Bartholomeus . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 32, Saur, Munich a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-598-22772-8 , p. 340.

Web links

Commons : Bartholomeus Eggers  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Rijksmuseum Amsterdam Short biography and picture of a bust of Johannes Munter, a mayor of Amsterdam at the time
• Catalog Sculpture in Berlin Explanations and illustrations of some Berlin works