The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Knabl, Joseph

KNABL, knä´b'l, Joseph, Austrian sculptor: b. Fliess, Tyrol, 17 July 1819; d. Munich, 3 Nov. 1881. As son of a peasant he learned carving with F. Renn in Imst. He went to Munich in 1836 and studied wood-carvings of the Middle Ages under J. Otto Entres and, later, Sickinger, when he worked on images of saints. Working independently from 1842, he created the heroic size group ‘Baptism of Christ’ for the Mergentheim Church, Württemberg (1852); several statues for the cathedral altar at Augsburg (1854); ‘Christ and the Apostles,’ a life-sized group for the high altar at Velden, Lower Bavaria (1855). His group of Saints Ann and Mary for the Eistatt Cathedral was awarded a prize at the Munich Exposition in 1858. His chef-d'œuvre is considered to be a ‘Coronation of Man’ for the Munich Frauenkirche high altar. He was appointed professor of sculpture (1862) in the Munich Academy.