MATTHIAS BERNARD BRAUN

(1684 - 1738)

Matthias Bernard Braun was born in 1684 in Santens near Innsbruck as the fifth child of Jacob Braun and Magdalene née Neureuter. Some time before 1710, after the years of his apprenticeship in Austria and Italy, Matthias Braun came to visit Prague. He soon became domestic in Bohemia, he found his wife and friends here, he became a New Town burgher and became familiar with our ambience.

Already his first work - the statue called St. Luigarde's Vision, situated on Charles Bridge in Prague - ensured him admiration and a lot of reorders. But he couldn't manage it alone to create the hundreds of commissions for Prague palaces, gardens and churches as well as other places in Bohemia. That is why he just created the designs and other models and then he just completed the work of the numerous group of workers of the workshop where he was employing his less famous cooperators.

It is possible to read from the faces of Braun's statues any affection, the bodies seem to be moving, and the gestures confirm the perfect illusion of life (so-called baroque illusionism). And withal Braun unlike Italian artists did not create from marble but less precious sandstone. Braun brought dramatics, passion and subjective restlessness into Czech statuary. If we look for the influence of Vienna with Brokoff, then Italian influence is perceptible in Braun's work.

From all artworks of the Master of illusive baroque the statues in Kuks are probably the most famous ones. They were created at the order of Count František Špork (allegory of Virtues and Vices, a monumental sculpture chiselled in sandstone rocks in Betlém near Kuks), the statues in St. Kliment's church in Prague, etc.

JOHANN BROKOFF

(1652 - 1718)

This carver and sculptor of German origin was born in Spišská Sobota in Slovakia. He came to Bohemia after 1680. Many statues are ascribed to him, especially in western Bohemia, especially the first statue of Charles Bridge, which is the statue of St. Johannes Nepomucensis.

MICHAEL JOHANN JOSEF BROKOFF

(1686 - 1721)

He was born on April 28, 1686 in Klášterec nad Ohří. He was the elder son of the wood-carver and sculptor Johann Brokoff. He made his presence felt through decorating the Marian column in Broumov (1706) and creating a few sculptural groups of Charles Bridge: the Baptism of Christ (1706) and the statue of St.Joseph (both statues are in the Lapidary of the National Museum today).

FERDINAND MAXMILIAN BROKOFF

(1688 - 1731)

He was born as the second son of the wood-carver and sculptor Johann Brokoff.

Ferdinand created dynamic figures and had a pleasure in exotics. For example the statue of the Turk is one of the most famous figures of Charles Bridge. For Charles Bridge he also created the statue of St.Adalbert, the statue of St.Gaetano, the sculpture group of Francis Borgia, the statue of St.Ignatius, the statue of Francis Xaverius, etc.

In the climactic years of Czech Baroque Brokoff's work also reaches the top performance. In 1714 it ripened to the ornamental sculpture of Prague Morzin Palace. The statue of St.John the Baptist (1714 - 1715), the wooden statues of Calvary at St.Castulus (1716), the complex of Twelve Stations of the Cross and the group of Jesus Christ on the Mount of Olives on the New Castle Steps in Prague arose in the same period. F.M.Brokoff decorated the Marian column in the Hradchin Square in Prague (1724 - 1726) in cooperation with younger sculptors.