Biography

Willem Danielsz van Tetrode (known in Italy as Guglielmo Fiammingo) was a sculptor of Netherlandish origin, who spent most of his life abroad.

He is documented at the court of François I by his late teens, the place where he probably met Benvenuto Cellini, who left the French court and returned to Florence in 1545. Tetrode was in Florence between 1545 and 1551, where he worked in the studio of Benvenuto Cellini. He was among the sculptors who worked on the marble base for Cellini's Perseus with the Head of Medusa in Florence. In Rome he worked under the direction of Guglielmo della Porta, restoring antiquities for the Cortile del Belvedere and other Vatican projects.

During his Italian period he became familiar with forms of sculpture and patronage that were barely known in his native Holland. He worked for princes with a refined taste and a cultured interest in classical antiquity. The most important thing he learned in Italy was how to make bronze sculptures that went on to grace his patrons' art cabinets: small, portable statues, mainly of mythological subjects.

In 1567 he returned to Delft. There in 1568 he signed a contract for the new high altar in the Oude Kerk, which he finished in 1573. In 1574-75 he was in Cologne.

Tetrode was a seminal figure in introducing to the Netherlands the small-scale bronze sculpture, suited to a collector's study.