Location
Austria, Styria, Graz
Pilgrimage Church Mariahilf (Wallfahrtskirche Mariahilf)
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Artwork
Sculptural Group of Madonna Enthroned and Child, St Francis, St Anthony, Two Adoring Angels and Three Archangels on the Façade of the Pilgrimage Church Mariahilf in Graz
Type
Sculptural group
Critical History
The niche figures of St Francis and St Anthony flanking the Madonna and Child are situated between two Corinthian columns. According to Kohlbach, the sculptures are attributed to Straub, although they appear very “quiet and serious” for his style.2 Above the niches there are stucco putto-heads. The central portal is crowned by the miraculous image (Gnadenbild) of Mariahilf with two adoring angels (documented in 1740).1 The ensemble is completed by the sculptures on the triangular pediment, showing the archangels Gabriel and Raphael (left and right) as well as Michael and the Fall of the devil (middle). The latter was created according to Lorenzo Mattielli’s sculptural group of the same name above the portico of St Michael in Vienna (1725). Both groups show a maximum of technical expanding.
Schweigert attributes the façade sculptures to the beginning of Straub’s middle period: The sculptures are even more expressive and vivacious in their gesture, clothing and physiognomy.3
Construction / Execution
The sculptures are made of carved sandstone.
Components
- Sculpture
- Author: Philipp Jakob Straub (Wiesensteig 1706 – Graz 1774)
- Completed: 1740 – 1744
- Technique(s): stone carving
- Material(s): sandstone
Comment
A restoration of the sculptures took place in 1972.4
Images
- The statue of Madonna with Child, Detail, Mariahilf (photo by Christina Pichler, 2018)
- The statue of an adoring angel (right) above the main portal, Mariahilf (photo by Christina Pichler, 2018)
- The statue of St Francis in a niche, flanking the main portal, Mariahilf (photo by Christina Pichler, 2018)
- The statue of St Anthony in a niche, flanking the main portal, Mariahilf (photo by Christina Pichler, 2018)
- The statue of Archangel Michael and the Fall of the Devil on the pediment, Mariahilf (photo by Christina Pichler, 2018)
- The statue of Archangel Raphael on the pediment, Mariahilf (photo by Christina Pichler, 2018)
Catalogue entry prepared by Christina Pichler and Margit Stadlober
Recommended citation: Christina Pichler and Margit Stadlober, Sculptural Group of Madonna Enthroned and Child, St Francis, St Anthony, Two Adoring Angels and Three Archangels on the Façade of the Pilgrimage Church Mariahilf in Graz, in: TrArS – Tracing the Art of the Straub Family, 2018, (accessed 28/10/2025) URL
