Franz Anton Maulbertsch

1724 – 1796

Maulbertsch (or Maulpertsch) was the outstanding Austrian decorative painter of the 18 th century. He was active and extremely productive over a wide area of central Europe and most of his works (altarpieces as well as frescoes) are still in the churches and secular buildings in Austria, the Czech republic, Hungary, and Slovakia for which they were painted. Maulbertsch's vivacious, colourful, and emotional style was almost completely resistant to Neoclassical influences, representing the last glorious flowering of the Baroque and Rococo tradition. His painterly dash is even more apparent in his oil sketches, which are well represented in the Barockmuseum, Vienna, and he was also an outstanding etcher. His oeuvre is well represented in Hungary. A major work of his early period was a series of frescoes for the parish church of Sümeg (1757-59) followed by frescoes for the Erdõdy-castle and its chapel (1763), allegoric frescoes for the Féltorony-castle (1765), frescoes of the Gyõr cathedral (1772, 1781), the dome of the Vác cathedral (1774) , frescoes of St. Stephen for the parish church in Vác (1781-82) and frescoes of the episcopal see in Szombathely (1783). The frescoes of the chapel of the girls' school in Eger show the calmness of his late period (1792-93).

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