DONNER, GEORG RAPHAEL

( b. May 24, 1693, Esslingen, Austriad. Feb. 15, 1741, Vienna), sculptor whose works marked the transition from the Baroque to the Neoclassical style. In Heiligenkreutz in his youth to take holy orders, Donner met the sculptor Giovanni Giuliani and was encouraged to take up sculpture, working in Giuliani's studio and later entering the Vienna Academy. He lived in Salzburg for some years, later returning to Vienna, where he produced his masterpiece, the Providence Fountain on the Neuer Markt (New Market; 173839). The figures originally cast in lead, a technique favoured by the artist, were replaced in 1873 by copies in bronze. Other Donner works are the Perseus and Andromeda fountain in the courtyard of the Vienna Rathaus and a statue of Emperor Charles VI in the Belvedere, Vienna. The refined form and clear outline of his sculpture contrasted with the exaggerated Baroque style of his contemporaries and predecessors and influenced his followers to adopt more classical conceptions.