Josef Winterhalder the Elder

David receives consecrated bread from the high priest Achimelech. Group of figures by Josef Winterhalder the Elder in the ballroom of Hradisko Monastery , 1734

Josef Winterhalder the Elder , also Josef Winterhalder I (born January 10, 1702 in Vöhrenbach , † December 25, 1769 in Vienna ) was a German sculptor .

After his apprenticeship with his father, the son of the sculptor Adam Winterhalder received his training mainly in Vienna after a short stay in Munich . From 1728 to 1730 he was named there in the student lists of the Academy of Fine Arts . Paul Troger was one of his teachers in drawing . He traveled to Dresden via Prague to study the works of Balthasar Permoser .

In 1730 and 1732 his name was mentioned in contracts with the abbot of the Hradisko monastery . Another contract dated August 20, 1731 names his workforce at the Stuck pulpit of the pilgrimage church on the Holy Mountain , another from November 1, 1731 entrusted him with the erection of the figures Fama, Spes and Liberalitas above the church portal with his brother Johann Michael .

According to a contract dated December 31, 1736, he built a fountain that no longer exists in the courtyard of the prelature. The large group of figures of St. John of Nepomuk from 1737 was renovated and expanded between 1997 and 1998.

In 1736, together with the sculptors Andreas Zahner and Adam Johann Nessmann, he made the statue decorations on the ramp of the Dominican Church in Brno . In 1737 he created twenty larger-than-life sandstone figures of saints and angels on the bridge near Náměšť nad Oslavou Castle, commissioned by the landlord Adrian Graf von Enkevoirt .

Contracts from 1747 state that Winterhalder created four stucco altars in the monastery church of Uherský Brod (Hungarian Brod). In 1754 an altar of the holy cross followed. He probably moved to Znojmo around the middle of the century . In 1761 he wrote a letter from this place.

In 1753 he adopted three children of his brother Johann Michael, who had returned to Vöhrenbach, namely Theresia (* 1740), Josef Winterhalder the Younger and Anton (1745–1805). Josef the Younger later certifies that the older one instructed him "very well ... to the painting".

The monumental group of St. Florian on the town square of Uherský Brod and the 14 statues of saints on the wall built in 1752 around the village church of Hustopeče nad Bečvou (Hustopetsch). In 1761 Winterhalder presented his design for the high altar there to the abbot of St. Thomas Church in Brno, which was then executed by the Brno sculptor Jakob Schertz. In addition, some drawings by Winterhalder have been preserved.

literature

• Constantin von Wurzbach : Winterhalter, Joseph . In: Biographisches Lexikon des Kaiserthums Oesterreich . 57th part. Kaiserlich-Königliche Hof- und Staatsdruckerei, Vienna 1889, pp. 84–87 ( digitized version ).
• Hermann Arthur Lier :  Winterhalter, Joseph . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 43, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, p. 499 f.
• Edmund Wilhelm Braun : Winter Halder, Josef I . In: Hans Vollmer (Hrsg.): General lexicon of fine artists from antiquity to the present . Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker . tape 36 : Wilhelmy-Zyzywi . EA Seemann, Leipzig 1947, p. 84-86 .
• Josef Matzke : Olomouc sculptor of the baroque period. Quellenverlag V. Diwisch, Steinheim / Main 1973.
• Lubomír Slaviček (ed.): Josef Winterhalder the Younger (1743 Vöhrenbach - 1807 Znojmo), Maulbertsch's best pupil. Museum Langenargen am Bodensee, Langenargen 2009. ISBN 978-3-00-027324-7 .