Compared to the so-called ‘Stuttgart Sebastian statuette’ mentioned above, our relief is probably created later. Schenck makes use of the stylistic motifs available with masterly confidence: the martyr’s tree, suggesting a landscape, is set against a blue background covered with punchmarks – which are typical of many of Schenck’s works – and that simultaneously creates a spatial architecture for the pictorial surface. The head, dramatically stretched backwards, is modelled once again on the figure of Laocoön, to which Fritz Fischer refers in the exhibition catalogue of works on Christoph Daniel Schenck. 2 The motif here, however, is artistically further refined. Fig. 1. C. D. Schenck, Saint Sebastian, ivory, signed and dated 1675, Württembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart, inv. no. 1954–366
Fig. 2. Laocoön Group, detail, Roman marble copy based on Greek prototype, 1st century BC or AD, Vatican Museums, Rome
23
158
1
Christoph Daniel Schenck, exh. cat., 1996, op. cit., cat. no. 1, pp. 114 –16, colour plate 1
2
Ibid., p. 116
