Antonio Abondio (1538–1591) was an Italian sculptor, best known as a medallist and as the pioneer of the coloured

wax Waxes are a diverse class of organic compounds that are lipophilic, malleable solids near ambient temperatures. They include higher alkanes and lipids, typically with melting points above about 40 °C (104 °F), melting to giv ...

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

portrait miniature. Born in

Riva del Garda Riva del Garda (''Rìva'' in local dialect) is a town and ''comune'' in the northern Italian province of Trento of the Trentino Alto Adige region. It is also known simply as ''Riva'' and is located at the northern tip of Lake Garda. History Ri ...

, he was trained by

Leone Leoni :''For the early 17th-century composer, see Leone Leoni (composer)''. Leone Leoni (ca. 1509 – 22 July 1590) was an Italian sculptor of international outlook who travelled in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, Spain and the Netherlands. Leoni is r ...

and worked in Italy between 1552 and 1565. Thereafter he mainly worked for the Habsburgs, with a few works made for French and Polish kings. He moved to Vienna to the court of Emperor Maximilian I and after his death in 1576 to Prague. He travelled to France, Netherlands and Germany. He died at

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

in 1591. His son

Alessandro Alessandro is both a given name and a surname, the Italian form of the name Alexander. Notable people with the name include: People with the given name Alessandro * Alessandro Allori (1535–1607), Italian portrait painter * Alessandro Baricco ...

followed in his father's footsteps, also specializing in mythological and portrait reliefs, and marrying the widow of another court artist, Hans von Aachen.

Work

Thirteen of Abondio's wax portraits survive, usually made on a round black slate base, decorated with tiny pearls and precious stones. He made about sixty portrait

medal A medal or medallion is a small portable artistic object, a thin disc, normally of metal, carrying a design, usually on both sides. They typically have a commemorative purpose of some kind, and many are presented as awards. They may be int ...

s, with a portrait on the

obverse Obverse and its opposite, reverse, refer to the two flat faces of coins and some other two-sided objects, including paper money, flags, seals, medals, drawings, old master prints and other works of art, and printed fabrics. In this usage, ...

and an allegory on the reverse side, some of them have silver enamelled framing. He also made the dies for the first

coin A coin is a small, flat (usually depending on the country or value), round piece of metal or plastic used primarily as a medium of exchange or legal tender. They are standardized in weight, and produced in large quantities at a mint in order t ...

age of

Emperor Rudolf II Rudolf II (18 July 1552 – 20 January 1612) was Holy Roman Emperor (1576–1612), King of Hungary and Croatia (as Rudolf I, 1572–1608), King of Bohemia (1575–1608/1611) and Archduke of Austria (1576–1608). He was a member of the Hous ...

. Initially his style in metal followed that of

, for the facade of whose house in

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

(''Casa degli Omenoni'') he carved eight large atlantes in stone, but later included many other influences.

Sources

* George Francis Hill: Portrait Medals of Italian Artists of the Renaissance, London 1912, p. 72, 75 * Beket Bukovinská-Eliška Fučíková-Ivan P. Muchka: Die Kunst am Hofe Rudols II. Prag 1991, pp. 151, 155–156, 163.

External links

Two medals from the MetropolitanAbondio medal, NGA WashingtonEuropean sculpture and metalwork
a collection catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art Libraries (fully available online as PDF), which contains material on Abondio (see index) {{DEFAULTSORT:Abondio, Antonio 1538 births 1591 deaths People from Riva del Garda Italian medallists Italian goldsmiths 16th-century Italian sculptors Italian male sculptors 16th-century medallists