Kneeling angel

The progress of the commission is fortunately extremely well documented in an account book held in the Fugger archives at Dillingen. Fascinating details emerge from the accounts, such as the fact that the casts of the two reliefs and one of the large angels failed at the first attempt, and it is interesting to see how many people were involved in such a collaborative exercise. In connection with the final polishing, for instance, two women were employed for a number of weeks to rub at the bronzes with wire brushes and tartar and to wash them down with beer and water; and to counteract the effects of mercury poisoning the men working on the gilding were given small amounts of butter. This is unlikely to have been particularly helpful.

The marble framework of the altar was renewed in 1727, when the church was remodelled in the Baroque taste, but the bronzes - with the apparent exception of the Ascension relief - remained in place until 1807, when the church was secularised and the contents sold. The history of the sculptures between the early 19th century and 1964, when they were bequeathed to the Museum, is not known.

Hubert Gerhard was one of a number of Northern sculptors trained in Italy in the second half of the 16th century, all of whom came under the considerable influence of Giambologna and carried the latest artistic developments back to Germany and the Netherlands. The Fugger altar was one of the first manifestations of this mixture of Italianate and Northern styles in South Germany, and Gerhard - together with Johann Gregor van der Schardt and Adriaen de Vries - became one of its leading exponents.