Kneeling Angel (c. 1760): Art, History and Details

Kneeling Angel (c. 1760) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Ignaz Günther (German, 1725–1775).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

This angel, and another now in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, were probably originally placed on either side of a tabernacle—a structure designed to hold the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist—on an altar in a Christian church or private chapel. The angels would originally have had wings, and the now plain surface of the sculpture would have been painted or gilded. Ignaz Günther was among the most sought-after carvers of religious sculpture in southern Germany. His virtuoso skill is particularly evident here in the angel’s pious expression and elegantly formed hands and feet.

Object facts

• Title: Kneeling Angel
• Date: c. 1760
• Creator attribution: Ignaz Günther (German, 1725–1775)
• Culture: Germany, Munich, 18th century
• Type: Sculpture
• Technique: gessoed and painted wood
• Dimensions: Overall: 83.5 x 39 x 23.5 cm (32 7/8 x 15 3/8 x 9 1/4 in.)
• Collection: Sculpture
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 1966.18

Collection credit

John L. Severance Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966.
• Gerhard Woeckel, "Unbekannte Religiöse Bildwerke und Handzeichnungen Ignaz Günthers." Alte und Moderne Kunst 86 (Mai-Juni 1966): 20-26.
• "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, January--March, 1966." The Art Quarterly XXIX, no. 2 (Summer 1966): 165-186.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.