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Lot Essay
Although this relief bears the monogram of the celebrated Austrian sculptor Georg Raphael Donner, it has been attributed to his younger brother Matthus, who was also an accomplished sculptor. The reason for the monogram is that with this relief Matthus is paying homage to the work of his brother. The composition of the Venus and Adonis is closely related to the Judgement of Paris executed by Georg Raphael in circa 1730-32 (illustrated in Blauenstein, op. cit., fig. 33). Although simplified, the Venus and Adonis makes use of a figural group set in a landscape with a classical urn to the left and architecture to the right, just as one sees with the Judgement of Paris. In addition, the pose of Juno in the Judgement relief has been used again by Matthus, although here it has been transposed onto the figure of the departing Adonis. However, as Baum, loc. cit., points out in the entry for this piece in the sterreichischen Barockmuseum catalogue, stylistic elements, including the bulkier proportions of the figures, are more typical of the work of Matthus Donner.