RUES, Tommaso - b. 0 ?, d. ~1696 Venezia

Austrian sculptor, a native of Bressanone, Tyrol, active in Italy. He is also referred to as Ruer, Ruez, or Rerer. He moved to Venice around 1650, where he worked as an apprentice for eight years in the studio of Giovanni Hach, a sculptor and stonecarver from Bamberg, who was in Venice after around 1627. Rues owes the Northern strand of his training, apparent in works from the 1670s to the long period spent working with this German master. It is the Northern element of his idiom that surfaces in the reliefs sculpted for the churches of Redentore (1682) and of San Cassiano (1684).

Rues married in 1666 and had three children: Paolo, Elisabetta and Elena. His shop was in the district of San Giovanni Crisostomo. The artist’s death is recorded in the register of the parish of Santi Apostoli.

His work is largely influenced by Josse De Corte.

Deposition

Rues produced reliefs for the church of Il Redentore which demonstrate the high quality and expressive intensity of his work: the frontal of the high altar with the Road to Calvary began by another artist, and on the other side of the same altar, the Deposition. Particularly in the latter, the dramatic subject is rendered with realistic elements, at times with a tense expressionism.