Segments of altars of St Mary and St Ladislav

The extant statues and parts of altar architecture from the demolished altar of St Ladislav and St Mary from the apses of the aisles of Zagreb Cathedral have been combined into a single unit and shown under a common patrocinium.
From the altar of St Mary, in a carved frame of the central niche of the altar, the central statue of the Virgin with child on a half moon is shown, on a pedestal with a coat of arms of Mihael Bocak and an inscription.
From the Altar of St Ladislav the statues of Ladislav king of Hungary and Duke Emeric are shown, then the carved brackets on which were once placed wings with painted scenes from the life of St Ladislav and the Four Evangelists from the niches of the predella of the altar. The author of these statues is the Ljubljana master Ivan Komersteiner, who settled down for good in Zagreb at the end of the 17th century and had his workshop on Kaptol. Komersteiner’s arrival in Zagreb marked the ultimate penetration of our sculpting by the Baroque. The novelties he introduced were the ornamental and decorative motif of the Baroque acanthus, the so-called Italian leaves that he used in his own typical way very copiously on all his altars. The figures of his saints are slender, with fine, noble, regularly featured faces, with restrained expressions. They are characterised by a highly emphasised contrapposto. Under the tightly fitting clothing with the frequently used spirally curving folds between the legs of the figures, the anatomical details of the trunk are clearly drawn out. The mobility of the figures achieved liberates them from the set outlines of the altar niches, which indicates that the master had anticipated the exuberant style of Baroque. His artistic idiom, which is interesting, has no direct analogies in this country or in neighbouring lands, but it is clear that the indirect influence of Italy in his stylistic expression is not negligible.