Monday, January 1, 2024

Sculpture-Augmented Frescoes at Würzburg Residenz

Last summer (2023) I toured Würzburg's Residenz, the palace of the Prince-Bishop when the area was a unit of the Holy Roman Empire.  Its Wikipedia entry is here.

Its artistic highlights regarding painting are the huge ceiling frescos by the great
Giovani Battista Tiepolo.  The present post features the fresco in the Treppenhaus. This link notes:

"... in the great vaulted ceiling over the Treppenhaus - at 7287 square feet (677 square metres) one of the largest expanses ever to have been covered in fresco - the theme was "Allegory of the Planets and Continents."  This monumental mythological painting, which occasionally encroaches onto architectural elements below, extends over a flattened basket vault that spans a complex arrangement of flights and landings.  It shows the Four Continents beneath a central Heaven presided over by an art-loving Apollo."

It's that encroaching that concerns us today.

Some encroaching items are sculptures that overlap the painting in places, becoming part of it when viewed from below.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the name of the sculptor or names of sculptors who did the work via Google and Bing searches.  Perhaps I didn't dig deeply enough.  As it was, the items searches turned up became increasingly less relevant, so I decided not to turn searching into a death march.

Below are some photos I took.

Gallery

Treppenhaus staircase and fresco.

Corner detail containing sculptures of two men.

Another corner, two more men.

A third corner.

Segment of the Kaisersaal fresco.  Note the sculpted dog.

A charming sculpture in the Kaisersaal -- French appearing, and likely related to springtime.  I saw the title and sculptor's name is a catalog at the Residenz gift shop, but didn't buy the book.  And now I can't find that information on the Internet.  If you can, help me out in a comment.

1 comment:

  1. Antonio Bossi, according to this link:

    "Antonio Bossi created the four life-size stucco figures in the wall niches of the narrow sides depicting Neptune, Juno, Flora and Apollo."

    Residenz-Wuerzberg

    and his wikipedia page:

    Antonio_Giuseppe_Bossi

    Cheers, and Happy New Year.
    Dj

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