Franz Anton Maulbertsch Langenargen am Bodensee 1724 - 1796 Vienna

Hitherto unrecorded and unpublished, this is a preliminary sketch or bozzetto for the ceiling of the Presbyterium of the Cathedral of Gyor in Hungary, then part of the Hapsburg Empire. The contract for the ceiling was agreed with Bishop Ferenc Zichy on the 27 May 1772, and the ceiling completed the following year (see, for example, K. Garas, Franz Anton Maulbertsch 1724-1796, Graz 1960, p. 220, cat. no. 269, reproduced figs. 229-30). Until now the only recorded sketch associated with this commisison was that now in Berlin, which is much less worked through, and which presumably represents Maulbertsch's first outlines for the composition (reproduced in colour in K. Garas, Franz Anton Maulbertsch. Leben und Werk, Salzburg 1974, plate 17). In this sketch Maulbertsch has elaborated and changed the figure groups in the lower left of the design, while introducing the figure of Christ and several angels into the upper section. These upper areas were to be reworked again in the finished ceiling, with the artist introducing the figures of John the Baptist to the centre of the compositon, and bringing back the figure groups in the lower right section from the original sketch.