Bonaventura Joseph
Mutschele (Moutchelle, Mutschelle)

1.294Son of Johann Georg, sculptor. Married in Augsburg on February 7, 1759, to Maria Caecilia Benedicta, née Hagn, wax modeler, widow of Egid Verhelst, sculptor.

Apprenticeship with his father. He stayed in Strasbourg in 1751, in Bamberg in 1753, and in Augsburg in 1758, where he attempted to continue the Verhelst workshop. In 1762, he lived in Schweinau near Nuremberg with his brother-in-law, Johann Christoph Berg, and from 1764 to 1768 in Fürth. By decree of October 29, 1767, the Nuremberg City Council granted him city protection in recognition of his skill. The Bamberg nobility and the Nuremberg patriciate were his patrons. In June 1771, he moved to Russia, where he was appointed court sculptor in Moscow and, according to Maué, may have worked as a modeler for the porcelain manufactory in Werbilky, in the Moscow Governorate.

Works: HENFENFELD, Parish Church: Tomb for Johann Sigmund Pfinzing (d. 1764); NUREMBERG-Großgründlach, Parish Church: Tomb for Johann Sigmund Pfinzing (d. 1764).

Museum: NUREMBERG, Germanisches Nationalmuseum (GNM).

Literature: Thieme-Becker; Schwammberger, Fürth from A to Z, p. 268; Schwemmer, 1974, p. 58; KDM Nuremberg, 1977 and Dehio, Franconia; Sitzmann, 1983, pp. 385f.; Trost, 1987; Trost, in: Fränkische Lebensbilder 18, pp. 155-165; Maué, 1997, pp. 104-123; Stadtlexikon 2000.

(quoted from the Nuremberg Artists' Lexicon, edited by Manfred H. Grieb)