Lot 73: IGNAZ GÜNTHER (1725-1775), GERMAN, BAVARIA, CIRCA 1753

IGNAZ GÜNTHER (1725-1775), GERMAN, BAVARIA, CIRCA 1753 PAIR OF ANGELS FROM A HOUSE ALTAR polychromed limewood 16 and 17cm., 6¼ and 6 5/8 in. from head to proper left toe

G.P. Woeckel, Die Handzeichnungen des kurfürstlich bayerischen Hofbildhauers Franz Ignaz Günther (1725-1775), Weissenhorn, 1975, pp. 206-7, ill. 145-46; 38. Deutsche Kunst und Antiquitätenmesse, cat. Haus der Kunst, Munich, 1993, p. 86

Galerie Siegfried Kuhnke, Munich, 1993-94
private collection, Munich

This finely carved pair of angels probably once adorned an intricate house altar. Woeckel (op.cit.) attributes them to one of the main representatives of South German and Austrian Rococo, Ignaz Günther. The slender, elongated bodies, the loosely worn, heavy drapery and large, individually expressed feathers are all characterestic of the work of this master. That Günther often carved angels of this type is clear from many of his life-size works: one is the subject of the famous Guardian angel group in Munich's Bürgersaal and another pair flanks the impressive high altar by Günther in Rott am Inn. However, the present angels seem to be the only ones on this intimate scale. We do know that Günther worked on this scale: a drawing for a small expositorium of the Holy Hart survives in the Münchner Stadtmuseum (inv. no. 1199). It happens to incorporate a pair of angels holding up a crown which relate closely to the present two.

RELATED LITERATURE
G.P. Woeckel, Die Handzeichnungen des kurfürstlich bayerischen Hofbildhauers Franz Ignaz Günther (1725-1775), Weissenhorn, 1975, pp. 201-208, 297 and 398, nos. 21-22 and figs. 233 and 316