page_title: Georg Petel
section_title: Work
hierarchical_section_title: Georg Petel / Work
context_page_description: Georg Petel was a German sculptor and a virtuoso ivory carver. His work marks the beginning of Baroque sculpture in Germany.
context_section_description: The so-called Weilheim school of his home town, the study of the antique and influences of contemporary sculptors of Italy all influenced Petel's style.  Petel did not orient himself solely on late-Mannerist and Baroque sculpture. He also adopted ideas from contemporary painting such as that of Rubens.  Rubens' type of the crucified Christ with arms raised very high were translated by Petel to his ivory statuettes. This style was well suited to ivory carving, as it allowed the figure to be made in a single piece.  He carved the ivory crucifix, discovered recently at the Carmelite convent in Pontoise, when he was in Paris in 1621 at the age of just nineteen.
  The influence of Rubens and the study of nature allowed him to transcend the Mannerist tendencies in sculpture.  His "St. Mary Magdalene" in Regensburg Niedermünster anticipated the High Baroque of Bernini.
  During his repeated visits to Rubens in Antwerp, he produced after Rubens' designs some of his most famous small sculptures such as "Venus and Cupid" (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford), freely adapted from the Aphrodite of Cnidus but in its soft modelling closer in style to Rubens. Inspired by Rubens' sketches was also a salt container with the "Triumph of Venus" (Stockholm Palace).  Its concise composition and soft, sensual modelling make it a supreme achievement in Petel’s ivory work.  His statue of a Saint Christopher for the St Moritz Church in Augsburg also references an altarpiece of the 'Deposition' by Rubens of 1611 (in the Antwerp Cathedral).  This statue served as the model for many 17th-century representations of the saint in southern Germany.  In 1631 he made a life-size limewood statue of 'Salvator mundi' for the altar of the St Moritz Church in Augsburg.
  Petel also created figures of saints and in particular Saint Sebastian, who was regarded as a protector against the plague. He chose subjects from mythology and pioneered an earthy eroticism in his treatment of these subjects.
  He worked mainly in wood and ivory but was no less skilled in bronze. He worked equally well on large as small formats. He prepared his sculptures carefully using wax models and drawings.
  Examples of his work can be found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; the Residenz Museum, Munich; St. Moritz Church, Augsburg and the Bavarian National Museum in Munich.
caption: Death archer Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris
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