Fortune

Nimbly the naked beauty balances on a globe. She holds a long, billowing veil whose fabric is wound loosely about her arm, falls in a wide curve in front of her body, and lies across her left arm at the other side. With so much apparent movement, the figure invites the viewer to have a close look at her from every side. She represents the goddess Fortune, and the globe at her feet symbolizes the world, whose fate the inconstant goddess guides. The image of Fortune standing on a globe had gained currency among humanist scholars in the first decade of the fifteenth century. An engraving by Albrecht Dürer helped to make it familiar. This statuette was intended as a model for the metal casting of a fountain figure. Fountains of this kind were very popular in the sixteenth century, and were installed in towns and also in the homes of wealthy patrician families. The Berlin Fortune very probably came from Augsburg, one of the foremost centres of the Renaissance in northern Europe.