BEBO, Károly
(c. 1712, ? - 1779, Óbuda)

Saint Michael

1749
Painted limewood, height: 180 cm
St. Michael Parish Church, Mogyoród

An account of a payment of 100 forints to Károly Bebo for wood carvings on the high altar survived from 1749 amongst the documents of Mogyoród parish church, which was erected by Mihály Althan, the Bishop of Vác. This sculpture of the since then demolished high altar represents the church's patron saint, St. Michael, crushing the chained Satan, stirking down him with his flaming sword. This work is a sculpture-in-the-round version of a St. Michael type popularized by Guido Reni and which requires rather large space. Curiously, a design of Johann Lucas Kracker and some pictures related to it (the ceiling and altar paintings in St. Michael's chapel of Prague's Malá Strana Jesuit church, around 1762, as well as an altarpiece of the chapel, made by Kracker's workshop and conserved in Tarnazsadány, around 1780) are very similar to the proportions and twisted gesture of the Mogyoród figure.

The present condition of the figure group still reveals its original surface finishing. The rose "skin" of the Archangel, the lustre gold and silver of his wings provide an effective contrast to the black-stained distorted figure of Satan. A similar pictorial and plastic contrast can be found in the sculptural group of falling devils on the pulpit of Brünn's (Brno) Dominican church, a late masterpiece of Joseph Winterhalter senior from around 1745. Influence of the Brünn group has been demonstrated only in connection with the high altar of Eger's Jesuit church by Johann Anton Krauss.


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