Mathias Rauchmiller

Matthias Rauchmiller's clay model for the statue of Saint John Nepomuk which was placed on the Charles Bridge in Prague in 1683. Its iconography (bearded priest leaning to one side, wearing biretta, holding crucifix, haloed by five stars) became the archetype for later representations of this saint.

Matthias Rauchmiller (also known as Matthias Rauchmüller) was a painter, sculptor and ivory carver active and influential in Vienna after 1675. Born on 11 January 1645 in Radolfzell (near Lake Constance, in Germany), he died in Vienna on 5 February 1686.

Life and work Rauchmiller was born in 1645 in Radolfzell, the youngest son of the butcher Mathias Rauchmüller and his wife Agatha Schmid."

He probably received his earliest artistic training from a sculptor family in nearby Konstanz. including some whose work has been linked to Rome's greatest Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

In 1681 Rauchmiller designed a clay model for the St. John Nepomuk statue, which was installed in 1683 on the Charles Bridge in Prague. The iconography of Rauchmiller's bozzetto inspired iconography of the saint into the 19th century.