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Lot Essay
This exuberant and rare statuette of an elephant is thought to depict 'Soliman the Magnificent' (c. 1540-1553), an Asian elephant given to the Habsburg Archduke Maximillian II (1527-1576). The elephant was originally transported from the Portuguese colonies in Ceylon and Goa to King John III of Portugal, who gifted it to the archduke, writing as follows: 'I think that you should give the beast a new name - that of the arch-enemy of the Christian West and of your princely House, the Sultan Soliman. In this way he will become your slave and be suitably humiliated. As an animal in your parades shall he enter your residence in Vienna, he had hoped to contrive your downfall.' The gift was therefore an offering of thanks to the Habsburgs for repelling the marauding Turks under Suleiyman the Magnificent from the gates of Vienna in 1529.
The beast then undertook an extraordinary journey across Europe, accompanied by Maximillian and his family and attendants with the procession drawing large crowds along the way. During the journey Solimon passed through the northern Italian cities of Milan, Cremona, Mantua and Trent and it is likely that the wave of elephant enthusiams that followed amongst artists and poets also influenced the creator of the present model.
A terminus ante quem for the manufacture is provided by an exact depiction of the statuette as an attribute of Africa on the frontispiece of an illustrated volume of national costumes after designs by Abraham deBruyn published in Cologne in 1577 (there is an example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, published in 1581, accession number 21. 44). Recent connoisseurship has tended to date the model to circa 1550, when the popularity and awareness of 'Solimon' would have been at its height.
The beast then undertook an extraordinary journey across Europe, accompanied by Maximillian and his family and attendants with the procession drawing large crowds along the way. During the journey Solimon passed through the northern Italian cities of Milan, Cremona, Mantua and Trent and it is likely that the wave of elephant enthusiams that followed amongst artists and poets also influenced the creator of the present model.
A terminus ante quem for the manufacture is provided by an exact depiction of the statuette as an attribute of Africa on the frontispiece of an illustrated volume of national costumes after designs by Abraham deBruyn published in Cologne in 1577 (there is an example in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, published in 1581, accession number 21. 44). Recent connoisseurship has tended to date the model to circa 1550, when the popularity and awareness of 'Solimon' would have been at its height.