John Anthony Quitainer (1709-1765)

John Anthony Quitainer (1709-1765), a significant representative of the Prague sculptors who were producing their work after the year 1730, exerted a profound effect on the style development of the late Baroque plastics in Bohemia. He was born in Prague in 1709, in a family of a sculptor, Ondřej Filip Quitainer, who originally came from Frýdlant and later settled in Prague's Lesser Town where he founded a sculptor studio. In 1718 he acquired the Lesser Town burgher-ship. John Anthony served his time of apprenticeship in his father's workshop. At the age of fourteen he participated in the process of decorating the interior of Černínský Palace. When his father died in 1729, John Anthony took over the workshop, the ownership of which he first shared with his step mother, Maria Teresia Quitainer. In the first half of the 18th century, John Anthony Quitainer became one of the most sought after sculptors in Prague. The majority of orders he accepted came dominantly from holy orders. He had decorated the interiors of monastery churches for Augustinians, Carmelitans and Dominicanes. The most important order, nonetheless, came from the Premonstrate order at the Strahov Monastery. There he created a unique and monumental sculpture collection, among which we can find carved decorations and stone sculptures, situated..