The Sculpture Museum - Catalog - Page 80
WILHELM HOPFGARTEN (1779–1860)
18
Rome, between 1837 and 1860
Equestrian Monument of Emperor Marcus Aurelius
(121–180 ad)
After the Antique
Bronze
59 cm (23¼ in.) high
31 cm (12¼ in.) wide
signed
W. HOPFGARTEN ROMA
provenance
Private collection, France
fig. 1
Roman, Emperor Marcus Aurelius,
c. 161–80 ad, bronze, 424 cm high
Rome, Musei Capitolini, inv. no. MC3247
Wilhelm Hopfgarten was born in Berlin in March 1779 and received his training
at the Berlin Academy of Design and in his uncle’s workshop, where he worked
alongside his brother Heinrich (Teolato 2016, p. 6). The latter would go on to
become the German master Christian Daniel Rauch’s preferred bronze founder.
When Hopfgarten arrived in Rome, following a period in France, he soon joined
forces with his fellow Prussian artist Benjamin Ludwig Jollage, who was born in
Berlin in 1781. Their workshop, including a foundry, was situated at Via dei Due
Macelli, and the two soon established “a reputation in the city for their technical
skill in fusing valuable pieces in bronze” (Teolato 2016, p. 6). Their ties with
the thriving community of Northern European artists in Rome, including the
renowned Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), gradually helped them
forge connections with several influential foreign patrons, such as the Crown
Prince of Denmark, Prince von Blücher, Count Schonborn, the British General
Sir Thomas Maitland, the Austrian General Baron Franz von Koller, and the pair’s
own sovereign, Frederick William IV of Prussia. Hopfgarten and Jollage’s skill
also impressed their Italian hosts – we know Antonio Canova considered them for
the fusion of his colossal Napoleon as Mars the Peacemaker, and no less than three
popes (Pious VII, Leo XII and Gregory XVI) commissioned them on a number
of occasions – and the Napoleonic regime, which employed them in the grand
decorative project for Rome’s Quirinal Palace, including the imperial apartments.
This highly finished bronze model of the ancient Roman equestrian monument
of Emperor Marcus Aurelius known as the Capitoline Marcus Aurelius is a
remarkably accomplished work by Hopfgarten, who signed his name on the base
of the cast, and a beautiful example of sculpture from the Grand Tour period.
The life-size portrait of Marcus Aurelius (121–180 ad) on horseback that our
bronze draws upon is thought to have been cast between c.161 and 180 ad, during
the Emperor’s reign or immediately after his death (now Musei Capitolini, Rome;
fig. 1). A potent visual embodiment of power, it soon came to represent the model
for rulers who wished to present themselves as heirs to imperial Rome. Already
in the eighth century, the great Charlemagne (742–814) had an equestrian statue
