STAMMEL, Josef Thaddäus
(b. 1695, Graz, d. 1765, Admont)

Death from the Four Last Things

c. 1760
Bronzed wood, height c. 250 cm
Collegiate Library, Admont

The artist's extraordinarily expressive figures in the collegiate library, in which local stylistic traditions are combined with formal concepts of the Italian Baroque, are based on allegories of transitoriness and motifs of Vanity. The allegorical figures representing the "Four Last Things," including the Death, seriously admonished the visitor to the library to be mindful of the earthly power of death and to put the books at the service of future spiritual salvation.