Allegory of the Turkish War in Hungary

Two fine bronze allegorical reliefs characteristic of the iconography of Rudolfian court art are the Allegory on the Turkish War in Hungary (1603, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna) and Rudolf II introducing the Liberal Arts to Bohemia (1609; Windsor Castle, Royal Collection). Such works reveal stylistic and thematic similarities with works by the Prague court painters; indeed, the Turkish War was modelled after designs by Hans von Aachen.

This bronze relief, a counterpart to the statue of Rudolph II as patron of the arts, has a highly complicated iconography. On it appear allegories of rivers, the imperial lion attacking the Ottoman dragon, and the emperor crowning Hungary, who has been liberated by Minerva and Hercules; on a battlefield bristling with banners and weapons, cavalry skirmishes at the foot of the Raab fortress, while in a sky strewn with astrological symbols a flourish of trumpets sounds the victory. The sensitive handling of relief links it closely with the art of Cellini, and also shows that de Vries, not content with the sculpture in bronze, was trying to emulate the techniques of painting.