Empire Triumphant over Avarice

Adriaen de Vries won international fame for active bronze figures that reflect both his study of nature and his training in Florence with Giovanni Bologna, the greatest 16th-century sculptor after Michelangelo. De Vries's complicated poses continued the style known as mannerism, but he also saw ancient bronze sculpture as a model to surpass. He devised this group for Emperor Rudolph II, who had appointed him court sculptor in Prague in 1601. The figures were cast in one pour, a feat the emperor, fascinated with transformations in metal and other materials, would have appreciated. De Vries gave psychological force to this allegory through the rippling tension of the figures and the gaze that passes between them.