Willem Danielsz van Tetrode

Between 1545 and 1549, Willem Danielsz van Tetrode worked in Benvenuto Cellini’s Florentine workshop, where he assisted with various projects including the restoration of antiquities. He then moved on to Rome, where he worked in another sculptor’s workshop. During this period, he created a series of small-scale bronze copies of antique works, including twelve busts of Roman emperors, an Apollo Belvedere, and an equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius; the collection was later presented as a gift to Cosimo de’ Medici. While in Italy, he also worked on sculpture for a public fountain in Florence.

On returning to Delft in 1567, Tetrode brought his enormous knowledge of Italian antiquities and Renaissance sculpture back to the Netherlands. He produced many religious sculptures there, including whole altarpieces of stone and marble and individual statues for church altars that had recently been vandalized by iconoclasts. Some of his sculptures, in turn, were also destroyed by iconoclasts. He also spent time in Cologne in 1575, working as both a sculptor and an architect for the archbishop there.