Johann Georg Platzer St Paul in Eppan near Meran 1704 - 1761 St Michael in Eppan

Although he was also a painter of history and allegories, it was the brilliant jewel-like colours and meticulous finish of cabinet pictures such as these whcih established Platzer's reputation as the unrivalled exponent of the Austrian rococo. His only serious rival in this field was his friend Franz Christoph Janneck, whom he had met upon his arrival at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna in 1726, and who painted a number of works in a very similar if somewhat less detailed vein. The sheer consistency of Platzer's work and the lack of dated examples makes it very difficult to establish a chronology for his oeuvre, but the high colour key and the more impressionistic handling of the brush indicate that these are likely to be mature works.

The attribution has been confirmed by Dr. Christina Pucher, who will include these paintings in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the works of Platzer. She suggests a date circa 1740-45 by comparison with a Death of Cleopatra, dated 1739, in the Tirolerlandesmuseum Ferdinandeum in Innsbruck and a Galante Scene in Niederosterreichischen Landesmuseum.