Marek Pučalík - Tomáš Valeš

Neue Feststellungen zum Prager Schaffen Franz Anton Maulbertschs

The article focuses on the Prague work of the Viennese academic painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724-1796), one of the most important figures in Austrian painting of the second half of the 18th century. His most important Prague work is his painting in the Philosophy Hall of the library of the Premonstratensian Monastery in Strahov (1794), but there are other works of interest by this artist linked to his time in Prague. These include especially the painting of St. John of Nepomuk adoring the Palladium of the Czech Lands, which until recently was thought to have been lost. This canvas, commissioned by the Premonstratensian order and by Benedikt Forst, the pastor in Kmětiněves, in 1794 (delivered in 1795), was created for the side altar of the local Church of St. Wenceslas, and then it was moved to the sacristy in the Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady at Strahov in Prague. As an admirer of this saint, Maulbertsch did the painting for free, requiring payment only to cover the costs connected with creating the painting and transporting it to its destination. A preparatory drawing by Maulbersch that is located in the Albertina in Vienna (inv. no. 25. 025) can be linked to this canvas and can be newly dated as having originated in 1794. The drawing was a preparatory version of the painting and differs from it mainly by its mirror reversal of the image and several other small differences - the deletion of the repoussoir figure of the angel and the position of the curtain and the shape of the doorframe are different. It was during this period that Maulbertsch's painting of the Holy Trinity was commissioned for the high altar in the former Trinitarian church on Spálená Street in Prague's New Town. There is an oil sketch located in the collection of the Baroque Museum in Salzburg in Austria (inv. no. 0022) that is connected with this painting, and there is also a small oil painting that belongs to a private collection in Prague that can now be linked to it. While the latter work is not by Maulbertsch, one hypothesis is that it may be by one of the master painters who worked with him (Martin Michl ?) and also worked on the fresco in Prague. Some small paintings modelled on Maulbertsch's original have also survived to date.

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