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The life of the Pozsony sculptor, Antal Marschal, is known to us in more detail than is his activity as an artist, for little of his work has survived. We know that Marschal was born at Stomfa, near Pozsony, that he attended the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts from 1778, and he later settled in Pozsony.
The bust, for which he provided an unusually long signature: "Anton Marschal natus 1740 se ipsum fecit. A. 1781," represents the artist wearing a fashionable wig and the style of clothes worn by the well-to-do in the 1780s; the expression suggests considerable self-assurance.
The Stylistic relationship between his work and some of those by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, the prominent sculptor of busts active first in Vienna, then in Pozsony can be ascribed to Marschal's academic training. In private collections there are two more busts of bronze-coated wood similar to the self-portrait, both marked with his initials. These, representing Vergil and Aristotle, also the head of Cicero in Betler which probably belonged to same series, demonstrate the cult of antiquity associated with the erudition and enlightenment which characterized the age of Joseph II.
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