17th century, male.
Monogram of an engraver (etching).
Active towards the end of the 17th century; cited by Brulliot. Known as the engraver of a garland of flowers and fruit probably designed for use as a model by silversmiths and goldsmiths.
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Ingeborg Wikborg
(Sigurd)
(b Inderøy, Nord-Trøndelag, April 21, 1933).
Norwegian sculptor, designer and medallist. He became familiar with handicraft in his father’s furniture workshop. In 1954 he began five years’ study as a commercial artist at the Håndverks- og Kunstindustriskole in Oslo and from 1957 to 1963 he worked as an illustrator for a newspaper. He studied at the Kunstakademi in Oslo from 1959 to 1962 under the sculptor Per Palle Storm (1910–94) who advocated naturalism in sculpture. As an assistant to Arnold Haukeland from 1961 to 1964, Aas lost his apprehension of the untried and cultivated his sense of daring, as he gained experience with welding techniques. Highly imaginative and versatile, Aas worked in both abstract and figurative modes and is reckoned one of the foremost sculptors in Norway; in 1990 he was honoured with St Olav.
Aas’s first sculpture was an equestrian monument in snow, made in Inderøy while he was a schoolboy. His first public project was the abstract steel figure ...
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Philip Attwood
(b Amsterdam, 1608; d Amsterdam, 1684).
Dutch medallist. One of the foremost Dutch medallists of the 17th century, he was influential in developing a style that was more sculptural than before. Most of his medals consist of two silver plates of repoussé work, chased and joined together at the rim to create a hollow medal. This novel technique allowed the artist to create portraits in very high relief. His medals date from 1650 to 1678. One of the earliest, portrays on one side Prince Frederick Henry of Orange and on the other Prince Maurice of Orange. More usually, the reverses of his medals bear a coat of arms, as for example the medal commemorating the settlement of the disputes between William II of Orange and the States of Holland (1650). Here the reverse bears William’s armorial shield, a crown, and the English garter. The ground of the obverse is covered with orange branches in the manner typical of van Abeele and demonstrates his mastery of chasing. On his medal of ...
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French, 16th century, male.
Active in Metz in 1596.
Sculptor, founder, metal worker.
School of Lorraine.
Working with four founders, Hutinet, Dubois, Sonois and Voitié, François Abel cast the bell of the cathedral of Metz in eastern France.
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Swiss, 19th century, male.
Born 24 September 1800, in Winterthur; died 19 December 1872, in Winterthur.
Engraver, sculptor, medallist.
Son and pupil of the engraver Johann Aberli. His name crops up in Lyons in 1821 and Paris in 1823. Around 1825 to 1828 he worked in Winterthur. From ...
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Italian family of medallists and wax modellers, active in central Europe. Antonio Abondio worked first in Italy and later for the imperial courts in Vienna and Prague. He worked in an eclectic style drawn from Italian and northern sources. His oeuvre consists principally of some 60 medals, though he also produced some wax portraits (13 of which survive) and a few plaquettes of religious and mythological themes. His son and pupil, ...
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Rudolf-Alexander Schütte
(b c. 1580; d Munich, bur April 29, 1648).
Italian metallist, son of Antonio Abondio. He is recorded in the 1606 household register of Emperor Rudolf II as a ‘sculptor and picture engraver’ with a monthly salary of 20 gulden. It is difficult to follow his working career, which began a few years earlier, because, unlike his father, he did not sign his medals. In the inventory of Rudolf II’s Kunstkammer, drawn up between 1607 and 1611, Alessandro Abondio is noted as the maker of a large number of embossed wax pieces, mainly of mythological subjects. After the death of Rudolf II, Abondio entered the service of Emperor Matthias II (reg 1612–19) and then worked for his successor, Emperor Ferdinand II. In 1619 Abondio married Regina von Aachen, the widow of the painter Hans von Aachen. In that same year he obtained Munich citizenship and from then on was largely resident there. At first Abondio worked for Duke ...
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Graham Pollard
(b Riva del Garda, Trento, 1538; d Vienna, May 22, 1591).
Italian metallist. He and Leone Leoni were the only Italian medallists to be highly successful as court artists north of the Alps. Abondio’s earliest dated medal is of Jacopo Antonio Buoncompagni-Sora (1561; Vienna, Ksthist. Mus.Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum [admins Ephesos Mus.; Ksthist. Mus.; Mus. Vlkerknd.; Nbib.; Neue Gal. Stallburg; Samml. Musikinstr.; Schatzkam.; houses Gemäldegalerie; Neue Hofburg; Kunstkammer; Sammlung für Plastik und Kunstgewerbe]). No stylistic development for his medals has been proposed. His eclectic style reflects Italian, German and Netherlandish sources. In Italy he followed the Milanese court style exemplified in the work of Leoni; he was influenced by medals of the Venetian Alessandro Vittoria, and, most surprisingly, early in his career he was influenced by the charming works of Alfonso Ruspagiari and the school of wax modellers and medallists centred on Reggio Emilia. Abondio’s signed medal of Caterina Riva (1565; e.g. London, BM) presents her almost as a painting, three-quarter length and three-quarter facing, with the voluminous drapery used to make a Mannerist decoration....
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Italian, 16th century, male.
Born 1538; died 22 May 1591, in Vienna.
Sculptor, medallist.
Prague School.
Antonio Abondio appears to have been the great 16th-century master in his field. He worked first in Munich at the court of Duke Maximilian of Bavaria, then in Prague, where he was employed at the court of Emperor Rudolph II. In ...
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Filipino, 20th century, male.
Born 1930, in Bohol, Philippines.
Sculptor. Figures, historical subjects, religious subjects, allegory, myths.
Napoleon Veloso Abueva graduated in 1953 from the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts (UPCFA), where he was mentored by the first National Artist for Sculpture, Guillermo Tolentino. He received another scholarship from the Fulbright/Smith–Mundt Foundation and in 1955 finished his master’s degree at the Cranbook Academy of Art in Michigan. He also studied at the University of Kansas and Harvard University. Regarded as pioneer of Philippine modern sculpture, Abueva also works in the figurative style and uses a variety of material, such as local hardwood, metal, marble, adobe, and cement. Among his early innovations are his ‘buoyant sculptures’, which he introduced in 1951. Many of his works are at the University of the Philippines campus in Quezon City, including the Crucifix of the Parish of the Holy Sacrifice (1957...
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French, 20th century, male.
Born 1904, in Paris; died 27 August 1967, in Perros-Guirec (Côtes-d'Armor).
Sculptor (including bronze), engraver (burin). Monuments, designs for tapestries, stage costumes and sets.
Henri Adam's father, a goldsmith and jeweller, taught him the rudiments of the trade while he was studying at the Collège Lavoisier. He also took classes in drawing, first at the École Germain-Pillon and subsequently at the Atelier de la Ville de Paris in Montparnasse, before moving to the École des Beaux-Arts. He exhibited various paintings between ...
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British, 19th century, male.
Born 21 April 1821, in Staines; died 4 March 1898, in Chiswick.
Sculptor, medallist.
George Adams studied at the Royal Mint under William Wyon and made his name with a sculpture based on a miniature of Queen Victoria. Adams then embarked on a major series of works, including eight portrait statues in Trafalgar Square....
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French, 15th century, male.
Goldsmith. Religious subjects.
Adrien de Tours was paid a sum of 431 pounds and 10 sols in 1492 for the production of a shrine to St Eutrope.
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Swiss, 18th century, male.
Born c. 1720, in Glaris; died 1750, in Glaris.
Engraver (copper), medallist.
A self-portrait engraved by him is documented.
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Jeffrey Chipps Smith
(b ?Munich, fl 1535; d Munich, 1567).
German sculptor, mason and medallist. In 1536 he became a master sculptor in Munich and shortly afterwards entered the service of Ludwig X, Duke of Bavaria. He moved to Landshut in 1537 to work on the construction of the Italian wing of the ducal Stadtresidenz. In 1555 he travelled to Neuburg an der Donau to oversee the shipment of stone for the palace’s chimneys. He was influenced by and may have assisted Thomas Hering, the sculptor of these chimneys (See under Hering, Loy). Also in 1555 he reverted to Munich citizenship.
The few surviving examples of his sculpture show him to have been an accomplished if somewhat derivative artist. Many seem to have been commissioned by Duke Albrecht V of Bavaria, who paid him an annual salary from 1558 (and perhaps as early as 1551) to 1567. Aesslinger’s limestone reliefs (both 1550) of the Massacre of the Innocents...
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Hannelore Hägele
(b Nuremberg, May 6, 1813; d Nuremberg, Dec 25, 1882).
German sculptor. After an apprenticeship as a metal worker, having spent seven years as a journeyman in a silver-plating factory and having taught himself drawing and sculpting, he received a scholarship that allowed him to attend art school. In 1840 he met Christian Daniel Rauch who invited him to Berlin as his pupil, and there he was influenced by the prevalent Neo-classical style. However, his early works, such as the colossal figure of Christ that he carved in 1842 for the church in Dinkelsbühl, Mittelfranken, owe much to the tradition of the medieval sculptors of Nuremberg. In 1846 he founded his own workshop and in 1850 sculpted the much admired marble statuette of the actress Elisa Rachel (Berlin, Pfaueninsel). At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 he won a commendation for his two medallions of the Prince and Princess of Prussia. During his long career Afinger produced 116 portraits in the form of medallions, busts and statuettes. He also carved a series of saints in sandstone for the ...
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Syrian, 13th century, male.
Metal worker.
Ahmad ibn Umar al Dhaki is thought to have come from Mosul, and had a famous workshop and numerous apprentices. Three leather objects, one in Cleveland Museum, one at the Louvre and one in a private collection in Switzerland, are signed by him and dated between ...
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Gordon Campbell
French term for openwork, used in the decorative arts principally with reference to metalwork, bookbinding and heraldry. In metalwork, it denotes the piercing or perforation of sheet metal, a practice found as early as the ancient Egyptian period. In bookbinding, the term ajouré binding refers to a style that emerged in late 15th-century Venice in which bindings were embellished with pierced or translucent patterns, typically open designs of foliage. In heraldry, an ...
