Der Handel

About this artwork

Modell für eine Giebelfigur des Palais Fries (heute Palais Pallavicini) am Josefsplatz in Wien.

Art Historical Context

Franz Anton Zauner’s “Der Handel” is a striking terracotta-red plaster model created in 1783 as a preparatory study for a gable figure on Vienna’s Palais Fries, now known as Palais Pallavicini. Standing just 53 centimeters tall, the work personifies Trade, one of the allegorical figures that once adorned the palace’s neoclassical façade on Josefsplatz. Zauner, a leading Austrian sculptor of the late Enlightenment, infused the figure with the balanced proportions and calm dignity characteristic of early Neoclassicism, moving away from the exuberance of the Baroque toward a more restrained, antique-inspired ideal. The model offers visitors a rare glimpse into the creative process behind monumental public sculpture. Zauner would have used such plaster studies to refine poses and drapery before the final stone versions were carved and hoisted into place high above the street. Its warm red patina not only protected the surface but also helped the artist visualize how the figure would read against the building’s stonework in changing light. As part of the Belvedere’s collection, this intimate object connects us to Vienna’s late-eighteenth-century transformation, when commerce and culture flourished side by side under enlightened patronage.