Braun, Matyáš Bernard

Braun, Matyáš Bernard (b Sautens, nr. Innsbruck, 24 Feb. 1684; d Prague, 15 Feb. 1738). Austrian-born sculptor who settled in Prague in 1710 and became with Ferdinand Maximilián Brokof the leading sculptor of the time in Bohemia. His dynamic, emotional style and virtuosity in stone carving show the influence of Bernini and he is presumed to have visited Italy as a young man. Much of his work is in Prague, including parts of the sculptural decoration of the Charles Bridge and two magnificent entrance portals (c.1713), featuring powerful atlas figures, on the street façade of the Clam-Gallas Palace. However, the largest groups of his work are at Kuks (Kukus), north-east of Prague, where his highly cultured patron, Count Franz von Sporck, had a country estate. There von Sporck created a novel kind of religious nature park, for which Braun made figures of penitents and hermits, some of them of colossal size and carved from the living rock (St Garinus, 1726). Earlier Braun and his workshop made a series of figures of the Beatitudes and the Virtues and Vices (1712–20) for the garden of the hospital church at Kuks.