Balthasar Esterbauer

Balthasar Esterbauer or Johann Balthasar Esterbauer (* around 1672 , probably in Mettenbach , Lower Bavaria ; † 1728 ) was a German wood and stone sculptor from Old Bavaria .

Life

Balthasar Esterbauer was the son of the master joiner Joseph Esterbauer. He probably received his training in the family workshop. He married Anna Maria Siebenlist and their children were sponsored by the builder Christoph Dientzenhofer (1706), the organ maker Johann Hofmann (1709) and the builder Balthasar Neumann (1717).

Esterbauer worked as one of the leading sculptors for decades in Würzburg, where he was first mentioned in a document in 1701 and received his first commissions from Würzburg Prince-Bishop Johann Philipp von Greiffenclau zu Vollraths .

Due to an earlier stay in Italy, Esterbauer's influence on the introduction of the Italian style is considerable. He certainly knew the works of Andrea Pozzo , Gian Lorenzo Bernini and Carlo Fontana . Esterbauer worked closely with an established group of artists, including the master builders Joseph Greising , Kilian Stauffer and above all Johann Dientzenhofer . Johann Thomas Wagner was one of his students .

Works

House Madonna attributed to Esterbau in Neubaustraße 12 (one of the so-called Greising houses in Würzburg)

Founder monument for Bishop Heinrich in the Würzburg parish church Stift Haug, 1705–1708

Madonna at the rectory of St. Burkard (Würzburg), probably created by Esterbauer around 1700

Inspired by Andrea Pozzo Johann-Gottfried altar in Kleinochsenfurt and 1945 burned Dreikönigsaltar in Wurzburg Stift Haug , Carlo Fontana more of his works at Stift Haug and by Gian Lorenzo Bernini the altars of the side chapel in Kloster Banz . The highlight of the collaboration with Dientzenhofer is perhaps the furnishing of the Banz monastery church, the high and choir altars of which are based on joint planning.

The stone sculptures form a second focus in Esterbauer's work: house figures in Würzburg, among others (although none of the figures, including many Madonnas or Immaculata statues, can be assigned to him with certainty) and Schwäbisch Hall, garden and fountain figures in Würzburg and Bronnbach as well the figurative decoration on the facade of the Fulda Cathedral (around 1710/12), in Obertheres , Bronnbach Monastery , Ebrach Monastery and Banz. The attribution of numerous other altars and sculptures is uncertain, such as the altar furnishings of the Würzburg Marienrotunda (around 1700) and the fortress hill or the facade sculpture of the Neumünster Church (after 1712). On the other hand, a statue of St. Kilian is definitely assigned to Esterbauer, which was attached to the gable of the now destroyed Bruderhof portal in Würzburg and was erected as a free statue in front of the Burkardus House ( cathedral school in Würzburg ) at Bruderhof 1 at the end of the 20th century .

In May 1702 Esterbauer had the order to sculptural works (especially ornamental carvings) at the new main altar (been its plastic construction in 1700 started free after a plan of who died in February 1701 Johann Caspar Brandt Johann Michael Riess was) the Wuerzburg Cathedral received and led him off until 1703. Apart from the Lahn marble columns, the altar burned on March 16, 1945 . Esterbauer's monument with its black Lahn marble and yellow-white alabaster parts, which is reminiscent of its donor in the Haug Abbey in Würzburg, combines two types (aedicula and console wall) of tombs.

Chronologically

• 1700 nave altar in Würzburg Cathedral (today Kleinochsenfurt, parish church)
• 1700/01 the conical high altar ciborium of the Würzburg Cathedral (destroyed in 1945)
• 1701/1702 Four now lost statues and two princely coats of arms for the new bridge gate (broken off in 1869) at the western end of the Old Main Bridge in Würzburg
• 1701/1702 10 complete statues of the apostles and 2 revisions (all 12 have since been lost) for the high altar as well as four figures for the new side altars of the former Würzburg University Church Neubaukirche (both altars were removed from the University Church in 1820).
• 1702/1703 carving for the high altar of the Würzburg Cathedral (the wooden parts of the altar burned in the bombing of Würzburg in March 1945)
• around 1703 Two wooden arched altars in the Würzburg Cathedral (both altars burned in 1945).
• 1703–1710 high altar of the church in Randersacker
• 1704–1706 Pulpit and four statues of the high altar of the former abbey church of Bronnbach Abbey
• 1705–1708 Donor monument for Bishop Heinrich von Rothenburg (Heinrich I von Würzburg) in Würzburg Abbey Haug (on the southwestern crossing pillar)
• 1706–1708 The three kings altar that has not survived in Würzburg's Haug Abbey
• 1706–1717 Two further wooden altarpieces decorated with figures (including St. Burkard) in the Haug Abbey in Würzburg, also burned in 1945
• 1706–1708 high altar of the church in Gereuth
• 1705–1710 carved choir arch altars (Bruno altar and parish altar) in Würzburg Cathedral (destroyed in 1945)
• 1712/1713 high altar in the former collegiate church on the Comburg in Steinbach (Schwäbisch Hall)
• 1717 statue of St. Kilian at the Bruderhof in Würzburg
• 1717–1720 choir arch altars in St. Peter's Church in Würzburg (the altars burned on March 16, 1945)
• around 1720 bronze epitaph for the imperial council and prince-bishop chancellor Johann Lorenz Adelmann († 1719) in the Würzburg Peterskirche
• 1721 high altar, pulpit and statues of saints in and on the monastery church in Banz.

literature

• Robert Diehl: Balthasar Esterbauer. A contribution to the artistic history of the Franconian Baroque . Dissertation (typewritten) Frankfurt 1924.
• Uta Hengelhaupt: Splendor and Zier, altar building and church interior decoration in the Würzburg Monastery, 1680 - 1720 . Schnell & Steiner, Regensburg 2008. ISBN 978-3-7954-2075-8 .
• Stefan Kummer : Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. In: Ulrich Wagner (Hrsg.): History of the city of Würzburg. 4 volumes; Volume 2: From the Peasants' War in 1525 to the transition to the Kingdom of Bavaria in 1814. Theiss, Stuttgart 2004, ISBN 3-8062-1477-8 , pp. 576–678 and 942–952, here: pp. 639–644.
• Franz Friedrich Leitschuh : Esterbauer, Balthasar . In: Ulrich Thieme (Hrsg.): General Lexicon of Fine Artists from Antiquity to the Present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 11 : Erman-Fiorenzo . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1915, p. 52 ( Textarchiv - Internet Archive ).
• Balthasar Esterbauer . In: General Artist Lexicon . The visual artists of all times and peoples (AKL). Volume 35, Saur, Munich a. a. 2002, ISBN 3-598-22775-2 , p. 191.

Web links

• WürzburgWiki: Balthasar Esterbauer (with further photographs of his oeuvre).

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, pp. 639-644.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, p. 644.
3. ↑ Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, pp. 640 and 642 f.
4. ↑ Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, p. 639 f.
5. ↑ Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, p. 640.
6. ↑ Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, pp. 640 and 642.
7. ↑ Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, pp. 642-644.
8. ↑ ^{a b c d} Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, p. 642.
9. ↑ Stefan Kummer: Architecture and fine arts from the beginnings of the Renaissance to the end of the Baroque. 2004, pp. 644 and 662.
10. ↑ Obermain-Tagblatt: Banz Monastery: The climax of the Rosary Festival (September 30, 2015).