MERVILLE, Karl Georg - b. 1751 Stuttgart, d. 1798 Pressburg

Austrian sculptor. It is not known where he trained before his arrival in Vienna in 1779, accompanied by his brother Friedrich Merville, a metal-caster. In the same year he married Maria Anna Torricella, the daughter of an art dealer from Como and herself a sculptor.

Merville’s largest and most important work was the central stucco relief of the Fall of the Angels, with nine pewter reliefs covering the Life of the Virgin, for the high altar of the Michaelerkirche in Vienna (1780-82; in situ). From the same period came a portrait of an Unknown Man (metal, 1780; National Gallery, Prague) and metal statuettes representing figures from classical mythology.

Merville must also have conceived an unexecuted monument to Catherine II (lead casting, Vienna, Belvedere) during the 1780s, although its history remains unclear.

Fall of the Angels

The high altar of the church of St. Michael is decorated with the monumental stucco alabaster Rococo sculpture Fall of the Angels by sculptor Karl Georg Merville. It represents a cloudburst of angels and cherubs, falling from the ceiling towards the ground. It was the last major Baroque work completed in Vienna.