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The two statutes (Saint Roche and Saint Sebastian) came to the Hungarian National Gallery from the tabernacle of Egervár parish church in Zala country, where now their copies can be seen. The patron of the church was the family of Count Széchenyi, which via relations with the Count Batthyány family of western Hungary, had good commercial and artistic connections with Graz, the centre of neighbouring Styria.
The statues of the Egervár high altar, made around 1730, also whow influences of Styrian Baroque, and its tabernacle with its Rococo ornaments, angel heads and two excellent niche statues, made more than twenty years later, unanimously allude to the leading master of the Graz sculpture. On the basis of historical and stylistic coincidences, Mária Aggházy identified the statues of St. Roche and St. Sebastian as mature works of Philipp Jakob Straub, and recent research on this artist, and similarities with his works in Graz, Hartberg and Ehrenhausen support this attribution.
The figures of the two holy patrons against plague rise above their artistic surroundings through their emotive expression of pain and suffering, a bold balance of plastic and pictorial approaches and their perfect compositional equilibrium. The holy pilgrim St. Roche stands with a paintful face, in drenched and fluttering clothes, pointing with his right hand to his plague-infected wound, thus alluding to his legend. At his feet can be seen his dog who brought him bread. The young Sebastian, tied to a tree and wounded with arrows is suffering in silence. His head is drooped on his shoulders with resignation, his attractive slim body bears his sufferings with a flagging pose.
The two statues, almost avoiding any intellectual and religious effects, lead to a thrilling identification of the spectator via their sensuous beauty, decorative and colourful palette and the illusory reality of their bleeding wounds.
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