WEBER, Joseph Leonard
(1702, Schweidnitz - 1773, Buda)

God the Father and God the Son

1766
Wood, height: 103 and 107 cm
Hungarian National Gallery, Budapest

József Lénárd Weber was born in Buda where he was granted civic rights in 1757. He was presumably related to the Silesian sculptor family, one of whom was a citizen of Nagyszombat in 1749. The master active in Buda first worked on the sculptural decoration of St. Anne's Church, and later on that of the Florian Chapel; in 1766 he also undertook to make the high altar for the Florian Chapel. This is a columned structure with two large statues of male saints, painted white, on either side of a picture of St. Florian by Franz Xaver Wagenschön, above it a group of figures representing the Holy Trinity surrounded by kneeling angels.

In the 1920s the chapel was twice reconstructed with the result that the sculptures from this baroque altar were dispersed. The two figures representing God the Father and God the Son, the one slightly turned towards the other, were acquired by the Hungarian National Gallery in comparatively good condition, though the painting was badly worn. Richly gathered garments characterize the carvings: the smooth surfaces of the drapery clinging to the bodies are cut by sharp creases into angular shapes. The same network of crinkles can be observed on the work of practically every sculptor of the period in Pest-Buda. In the surface treatment - sometimes in other ways too - the work of Antal Lipót Conti, József Hebenstreit, József Lénárd Weber and others is related to the rococo plastic art of South Germany.


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