Pietà Georg Raphael Donner (workshop of)

Donner was the most influential Austrian sculptor of the 18th century. In 1729 he received a commission in Bratislava from Primate Count Imre Esterházy, Archbishop of Esztergom (1663–1745) to oversee the architectural project of the John the Merciful Chapel in St Martin’s Cathedral and to implement its decoration; he was later given a commission for the Cathedral’s Saint Martin high altar too. In the last years of his life he completed various commissions in the city of Vienna. The Budapest relief is a variant of the depiction decorating the tabernacle door in the John the Merciful Chapel. The composition has survived in four known versions; after the autograph work in Bratislava, the Budapest version is among those executed at the highest level of artistry. Donner successfully combined Baroque elements with his favourite Italian motifs in this composition too.