Matthias Rauchmiller

[1] Rauchmiller was born in 1645 in Radolfzell, the youngest son of the butcher Mathias Rauchmüller and his wife Agatha Schmid.

[3] During his youth, he also traveled to the Southern Netherlands, where he was influenced by Peter Paul Rubens and his circle,[4] including some whose work has been linked to Rome's greatest Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

Rauchmiller's Liebfrauenkirche tomb sculpture shows Metternich reclining, reading a book, while a chubby, muscular putto (reminiscent of Rubens) looks on admiringly.

According to Walew, "The Metternich tomb gives the impression of a subtle and expressive homage to an intelligent man of strong character.

Rauchmiller's clay model (still on display in the National Gallery of Prague) was executed in wood by sculptor Jan Brokoff, and then cast in bronze by Hieronymus Herold, a bell-maker of Nuremberg.

Matthias Rauchmiller's clay model (1681) 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.
Metternich tomb in the Liebfrauenkirche, Trier, Germany
Plague Column in Vienna, based on Rauchmiller's three-sided design