Location
Austria, Lower Austria, Laxenburg
Parish Church Exaltation of the Cross (Pfarrkirche Kreuzerhöhung)
Original location:
Austria, Vienna
Benedictine Abbey Church Our Lady of Monte Serrato (Schwarzspanierkirche)
Artwork
The pulpit of the former Schwarzspanierkirche in Laxenburg
Type
Pulpit
Dimensions
Height: 750 cm, width: 330 cm, depth: 200 cm
Inscriptions
- QUIESCITE AGERE PERVERSE ISA 1 V16 (on the scroll of Isaiah)
- FASCITE IUDICIUM ET IUSTITIAM Jere 22 V3 (on the tablet of Jeremia)h.
- DEUS ERAT VERBUM / JOHANNI (in the open book held by the putto on the pulpit ceiling)
Critical History
The former pulpit of the Schwarzspanierkirche has been attributed to Johann Baptist Straub since Johann Kasper Lippert published the earliest biography of the artist in 1772, while Straub was still alive.1 The abbot of the Benedictine Monastery de Monte Serrato in Vienna, P. Anton Vogl von Krallern, commissioned the artwork from the young sculptor in 1730, when Straub was 26 years old. This commission was the first he undertook on his own, probably he also employed his younger brother Philipp Jakob, who stayed with him in Vienna from 1727 to 1733.2 Johann Baptist returned to Munich in winter 1734/35, which sets the date of the completion.3 The consecration of the church was in 1739. During the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Emperor Joseph II. the former Abbey Church of Our Lady of Monte Serrato was profaned in 1784. Under Court-Architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg, who was renovating the parish church in Laxenburg at the time, the pulpit was transferred to its new place.4
The completely gilded pulpit with its figural decoration of outstanding quality and its rich rocaille elements may be called a pivotal example of Munich Rococo; it has no equivalent within Austrian sculpture of the 1730s.5 Sitting on the outside of the basket are two nearly life-size figures: on the left side Isaiah, on the right side Jeremiah. Between the two prophets are two reliefs, depicting the sermon of St John the Baptist (left) and the sermon of St Paul on the Areopagus (right), in the centre is a figural group of two putti holding a model of the church .6 On the left side of the rear panel of the pulpit, the Angel of the Last Judgement shows his sword. Underneath the canopy, is a dove representing the Holy Spirit, on top of the pulpit the artist sculpted the Apotheosis of St. John the Evangelist, a highly agitated pyramid of clouds with the saint topped by the Holy Trinity.
Construction / Execution
Components
- Sculpture
- Author: Johann Baptist Straub (Wiesensteig ca. 1704 – Munich 1784)
- Completed: 1730 – 1734
- Patron(s): Anton Vogl von Krallern, abbot
- Technique(s): wood carving
- Material(s): wood
- Carpentry
- Completed: 1730 – 1734
- Patron(s): Anton Vogl von Krallern, abbot
- Technique(s): sawing
- Material(s): wood
- Polychromy
- Polychromy
- Completed: 1730 – 1734
- Patron(s): Anton Vogl von Krallern, abbot
- Material(s): gold leaf
- Polychromy
- First Re-Gilding
- Author: Urban Gräßl
- Completed: 1785 – 1785
- Patron(s): multiple, parishioners; Joseph Dreyer, priest
- Polychromy
- Second Re-Gilding
- Author: Alois Mayer
- Completed: 1886 – 1886
- Patron(s): multiple, parishioners
Comment
The original gilding as well as the re-gilding from 1785 are no longer visible. According to the file kept in the Department for Art and Conservation of the Archdiocese of Vienna no technical analysis of the artwork is documented, nor are there any records of the former restorations.7
Conservation-restoration
- 1785
Approach to the presentation of losses
Repolychroming: total
Materials: gold leaf, silver leaf
Treatment Description
After the parish bought the former pulpit of the Schwarzspanierkirche for 120 fl. it was dismantled, transferred to Laxenburg, built into the new setting and completely gilded. An amount of 300 fl. was paid to the gilder Gräßl, probably the "Kammervergoldter Herr Urban Gräßl", at that time the only court gilder mentioned in the Kaiserlich-Königlicher Hof- und Ehrenkalender Wien, Ghelensche Erben, 1793.
- 1886
Approach to the presentation of losses
Repolychroming: total
Materials: gold leaf, silver leaf
Treatment Description
Restored by the Viennese gilder Alois Mayer.
- 1991
Treatment Description
Re-gilding by Karl Kratochwill, 1030 Wien.
Images
- Pulpit, Laxenburg Parish Church, former Schwarzspanierkirche (Archdiocese of Vienna, Department of Art and Conservation, 2005)
- Prophet Isaiah (Archdiocese of Vienna, Department of Art and Conservation)
- Prophet Jeremiah (Archdiocese of Vienna, Department of Art and Conservation)
- Relief with the Sermon of St. John the Baptist (Archdiocese of Vienna, Department of Art and Conservation)
- Relief with The Sermon of St. Paul at the Areopagus (Archdiocese of Vienna, Department of Art and Conservation)
- Canopy with the Apotheosis of St. John the Evangelist (Archdiocese of Vienna, Department of Art and Conservation)
Catalogue entry prepared by Julia Strobl
Recommended citation: Julia Strobl, The pulpit of the former Schwarzspanierkirche in Laxenburg, in: TrArS – Tracing the Art of the Straub Family, 2018, (accessed 09/12/2024) URL