The Reception of St. Augustine in the Sky

Around 1784, under Emperor Joseph II, the court architect Johann Ferdinand Hetzendorf von Hohenberg gave Vienna's Augustinian Church back a Gothic look, clearing out 18 Baroque side altars. For the new high altar, Maulbertsch was commissioned to paint a monumental fresco straight onto the wall. This oil sketch, made around 1785 or 1786, is all that is left of it. The fresco lasted less than a century and was destroyed when the building was altered again in 1873. Saint Augustine, in bishop's robes, rises on clouds with a crowd of angels toward the Trinity at the top, and his emblem, a flaming heart, floats ahead of him. Maulbertsch worked out the fabrics with care and only hinted at the faces. The altar standing there today is a stone Gothic Revival piece, designed for Vienna's Votive Church and turned down by that building's architect.