Josef Winterhalder the Elder

Josef Winterhalder the Elder (10 January 1702, Vöhrenbach – 25 December 1769, Vienna) was a German sculptor.

After an apprenticeship with his father, the sculptor Adam Winterhalder [de], he spent a brief time in Munich then, from 1728 to 1730, completed his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, where he was taught by Paul Troger, among others.

Between 1730 and 1732, he and his brothers worked at the Hradisko Monastery and at the pilgrimage church in Svatý Kopeček (today part of Olomouc).

In 1736, he was one of three sculptors chosen to create the decorations on the ramp of the Dominican church in Brno.

The following year, he began creating twenty sandstone figures of saints and angels for the Náměšť nad Oslavou bridge, commissioned by the Enckevort family [de].