Emperor Rudolf II (Bust)

By 1603 Rudolf II had almost withdrawn from public life. He rarely left Prague Castle, and envoys to his court could wait weeks for an audience, while his armies had been fighting the Ottoman Turks in Hungary for ten years. In bronze the emperor looks entirely different. Adriaen de Vries shows him in parade armour with a sash slung across his chest and his head turned sharply, alert as a commander. The model was a bronze bust of Rudolf's great-uncle, Emperor Charles V, by Leone Leoni, which Rudolf had acquired for his collection.

The bust rests on an eagle set between two reclining figures, signs that the museum reads as the emperor's dignity, power and wisdom. The Latin inscription names Rudolf as Roman emperor, aged 51, in the year 1603, and the sculptor signed it too, as Adrianus Fries of The Hague.