Franz Anton Maulbertsch, Andreas Brugger a bratrstvo Neposkvrněného početí Panny Marie v Podivíně

The article presents new findings about the activity of religious confraternities in Moravia in the early modern era in commissioning works of art, and about the work of Andreas Brugger (1737–1812), a painter from Maulbertsch's "circle". Archive sources that have been made accessible in published form provide detailed information about how the Confraternity of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady at the parish church of St. Peter and Paul in Podivín provided a new altar and altarpiece for the church in 1760. The sources give the name of the Viennese painter Franz Anton Maulbertsch (1724–1796) as the creator of the altarpiece. However, on the basis of a comparison with his known oeuvre, it has been established that the altarpiece in Podivín is the work of Maulbertsch's pupil and assistant Andreas Brugger, who was working with the Viennese master painter at the same time on works commissioned for the Piarist college in nearby Mikulov. The canvas whose creator has been newly identified in this way is the first work known to have been painted by Brugger before his return from Vienna to the Lake Constance region in the mid 1760s, and may provide the basis for identification of further works by the artist.