Dominic Moling

Dominic Moling (also Domene or Domenico ; ≈ 28. August 1691 in Wengen , South Tyrol , † 27. May 1761 ) was an important Ladin sculptor of the Baroque .

Putto at the pulpit and on the right a statue of St. Andrew of Domëne Moling in the parish church of St. Genesius in Wengen

Life

Dominikus Moling was the eldest son of six children of Christian Moling and Maria de Terza, who owned the Molin (or Morin) farm in Wengen. In the church registers only the date of his baptism and not his date of birth is recorded, which according to the use of the time must have been shortly before or even on the same day. The spelling of the name varies in the documents between Moling , Molling or, more rarely, Molin .

After the father had recognized his son's artistic talent, he made it possible for him to receive an expensive training as a sculptor, which exceeded the son's inheritance many times over. A relative named Johann and Jakob Härtl are named as Moling's first teacher. After a few years, Moling turned to Trentino , as was typical for many Ladins from the remote Val Badia . There he was for decades a member of the workshop of Cristoforo Benedetti in Castione near Brentonico , which created numerous altars and sculptures for the whole of Tyrol. In the early years he worked as an anonymous workshop member, so that no specific works from that time can be assigned to him; From 1736 at the latest, however, he appeared under his own name as a subcontractor for Benedetti. One shouldn't imagine the collaboration with Benedetti as continuous, but rather interrupted by long years of absence.

Moling was in Venice where he made copies of ancient sculptures for the English. Here he possibly met Balthasar Permoser in 1726 , who invited him to Dresden . Permoser also constantly needed a number of sculptors to work for him for his large-scale orders. Moling learned ivory carving from Permoser . He stayed with him until his death in 1732, but immediately left Dresden and went back to Italy. In Dresden he met Antonio Corradini and in Venice he seems to have had contact with Giovanni Maria Morlaiter . A trip to Rome followed, about the duration of which nothing is known.

Moling resumed his collaboration with the Benedetti workshop, now run by the son of Cristoforo, Teodoro , and settled in Mori. From the 1740s he had more contact with his Ladin homeland, for which he also carried out various assignments in Wengen and elsewhere. In the middle of the 1750s he built a house in the hamlet of Morin that is still preserved today and is known as la ćiasa ai sanć because of the figures of saints made in it. In the last years of his life he has been commuting between his homeland and the Trentino seasonally. His unmarried sister Catharina, who was twelve years younger than him, ran the household for the rest of his life and also helped his brother with his artistic work. Whether her entire sculptures can be ascribed to is disputed.

Dominikus Moling died in his house in Wengen in 1761. His personality is described as simple but with integrity. He was of sturdy build and, according to common evidence, liked to drink wine. He cannot have been uneducated as he left behind numerous books in German and Italian. Nothing is known of Moling's direct pupils, but his nephew Matthias, born in 1734, was also a sculptor.

plant

Dominikus Moling is considered one of the most important Ladin sculptors. He was equally concerned with stone and wood sculpture as well as with ivory carving. Since not a single one of his works is signed, it is not always easy to attribute them to him. Not a single reliable attribution is possible from the artist's first four decades of life. So there are only 32 sculptures and 7 ivory carvings that are definitely made by him for his artistic assessment. These are almost exclusively figures for altars in Tyrol.

• Sculptures on the Anna Altar , white marble, life-size, Innsbruck Cathedral (1726)
• Statues on the high altar , reddish marble, life-size, Innsbruck Cathedral (1726–1728 / 1729)
• Christ on the scourge column , marble, 32 cm, Innsbruck , Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, inv. P 165 (around 1730)
• Two unknown saints, St. Gertrud, St. Dominic , each wood, 133 cm, Diözesanmuseum Brixen (around 1735/1740)
• Fountain of Neptune , marble, statue approx. 185 cm, Piazza Battisti, Rovereto (1736)
• Statues of Mary, John and angels on the altar carrying the cross , white marble, St. Michael , Brixen (1739)
• Angel at the altar of Mariahilf , white marble, S. Marco in Rovereto (1741)
• Side statues of St. Dominic and Rosa of Lima , white marble, 200 cm, Riva del Garda parish church (1744)
• Sculptures on the high altar , Carrara marble , Mori parish church (before 1745)
• Pulpit made of Wengen , wood, Innsbruck, Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum, inv. P 1094 (1745/1746)
• Sculptures of hll. Franz von Sales, Theresia von Avila and two angels , white marble from Castione, each approx. 185 cm, side altar, parish church of Riva del Garda (1745/1746)
• Statues of hll. Petrus and Paulus and several angels , Carrara marble, 190 cm each, high altar, Brixner Dom (1749–1752)
• Immaculata , wood, 128 cm, Wengen, parish church of St. Genesius (around 1750)
• Immaculata , wood, 130 cm, Andraz, branch church for the Holy Trinity (around 1750)
• Processional figure of Maria in the type of Immaculata , wood and fabric, 130 cm, St. Kassian , parish church (around 1750)
• Statues of hll. Christophorus, Oswald and Engel , Carrara marble, 170 cm, Johannes-von-Nepomuk-Altar, Brixner Dom (1754–1756)
• Busts of two holy bishops , wood, 75 cm, St. Martin in Thurn , Widum (around 1750/1760)
• St. John of Nepomuk , wood, 125 cm, St. Lorenzen , St. Laurentius parish church (around 1750/60)
• Statues of hll. New Year's Eve, Genesius, Katharina, Andreas and Putten , wood, each approx. 135 cm, Wengen, St. Genesius parish church (around 1755–1761)

Some ivory sculptures are in the Tyrolean State Museum.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Mollin, also Molling, Dominik . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 19th part. Imperial-Royal Court and State Printing Office, Vienna 1868, p. 19 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Otto Ritter von Lutterotti: A Baroque sculpture workshop. The Benedetti and Dominikus Moling. Athesia, Bozen 1941. (= Supplements to the Yearbook for History, Culture and Art No. 7.)
• Nicolò Rasmo : Domenico Molin. In: Alto Adige. Alcuni Documenti del Passato. Volume III. Bergamo 1942, pp. 118-126.
• Eugen Trapp: Dominikus Moling 1691–1761. A Ladin baroque sculptor. Approaches to life and work. Istitut Ladin "Micurà de Rü", San Martin de Tor 1999, ISBN 88-8171-011-0 .

Web links

Commons : Dominikus Moling  - collection of images, videos and audio files