Johann Paul Schor

He was the preeminent designer of decorative arts in Baroque Rome, providing drawings for state beds, fireworks, coaches, silver, textiles and even banquet setpieces executed in sugar.

Influenced by Bernini and Pietro da Cortona, the originality of his designs and his versatility gained him a prominent position among artists, patrons and craftsmen in Rome: "he united in his work the highly expressive artistic legacies of Cortona and Bernini with a calligraphic freedom, apparently stemming from Callot and Stefano della Bella, which at times seems to foreshadow the rococo" (Hibbard 1958:205.)

In 1659, the pope also commissioned Schor to execute Bernini's designs for rebuilding of the Chigi family chapel (Capella della Madonna del Voto in the Duomo di Siena.

Schor also helped decorate rooms of the Vatican and in Palazzo Borghese, where he collaborated with Carlo Rainaldi on the fountain for the nymphaeum in the courtyard, depicting Venus at the Bath.

He supplied illusionistic quadratura suggesting sculptural enframements for ceilings at Palazzo Colonna, (1665-1668), where the painted subjects were provided by Giovanni Coli and Filippo Gherardi.