Ten Commandments, Dublin

Buchinger spent nearly twenty-two years in the British Isles, traversing England, Scotland, and Ireland. 1720 marks the start of his residency in Ireland; his third wife, Ann Kemelmeyer, died in Galway in January of 1722, and he quickly remarried Ann Teys in Belfast in July. This diminutive Decalogue with the Lord’s Prayer and Apostles’ Creed is incredibly deliberate in its rendering, suggesting that Buchinger might have used a straight edge or a compass. Also visible in this work are graphite flowers framing the two tablets of Moses and parallel shading lines in the garments of the prophets that were either never executed by Buchinger in pen and ink or erased to mask the process of making.