1760s

Fragment of an Angel

German, 1725 - 1775

This angel, and another now at the Cleveland Museum of Art, were almost certainly made for placement at either side of a tabernacle on an altar. Ignaz Günther, a leading sculptor in southern Germany, mostly received commissions for elaborate altarpieces and figures for religious contexts. His virtuoso skills as a carver and ability in capturing movement and spiritual expression are apparent in this refined figure, which would have been completed with wings and decorated with paint or metallic ornamentation that has since been lost.