O zabudnutej realizácii Antona Schmidta v Sebechleboch
On the Forgotten Realisation of Anton Schmidt in Sebechleby

Summary/Abstract: The paper presents the findings of research on the oeuvre of the Viennese painter Anton Schmidt,a key creator of late Baroque painting in the area of the Central Slovak (Lower Hungarian) miningtowns. The research focuses on Schmidt‘s hitherto unknown realisations for the parish church of St.Michael and its chapel of St. Joseph in the village of Sebechleby (Slovakia). These realisations includethree altarpieces and murals, two paintings originally intended for the side altars of St. Anne and theAssumption of the Virgin Mary have survived. The paintings from the master‘s most prolific periodwere created in the 1750s, shortly after he decorated the chapel of the manor house of the Koharyfamily in St. Anton. Then Sebechleby was a town and the seat of the Hont County, administered hereditarilyby the Kohary family. It can be assumed that the Kohary family mediated this commission.Schmidt‘s realisations occurred during the tenure of parish priest Andrej Pierstl (Pirstl), a prominentfigure in developing two local religious congregations: the Brotherhood of St. Joseph and the Congregationof Christian Doctrine. The surviving paintings comprise a diverse array of Schmidt‘s earliercompositions, suggesting that he also utilised these compositions for other commissions. While theymay not be considered among his most significant creations, they serve as a demonstration of theefficacy of the master and his workshop in working with a repertoire of popular patterns from theperiod of his Viennese studies in the 1730s.

• Details
• Contents