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Hebel [Hebbel], Markus
( fl Holstein, 1639; d Stockholm, 1664). German sculptor and wood-carver, active in Sweden. He worked in Sweden from c. 1640 and was one of the sculptors employed (1641) in decorating the ‘Peerless’ palace (destr. 1825) of the De la Gardie family in Stockholm. Assisted by Hans Jerling ( fl 1654; d 1695), he executed the monument (1660/61) to Johan Pontusson De la Gardie (1583–1652) in the parish church of Veckholm, Uppland. Notable among his works in wood are fireplace encasements (1650s, completed after his death) in Skokloster Castle and a trophy ornament on the segment gable (1657; all in situ) terminating the entrance front of the same building. Hebel’s fireplace encasements are mostly directly copied from a set of prints by J. Barbet (Livre d’architecture, Paris, 1633) but with slightly altered proportions. To their classical French ornaments Hebel added German scrollwork; their themes are martial, with heavy clusters of trophies mingling with figures from Classical mythology and coats of arms. Three altarpieces, formerly attributed to Hebel and his workshop, in the German Church (1659), Stockholm, in St Nicholas’s Church (1661), Örebro, Närke, and in the parish church (1656) of Vadsbro, Södermanland (all in situ), may have been executed by others–the two former ones perhaps by Hans Jerling, the third by Johan Wendelstam. The compositions of the fireplace encasements by Hebel seem more modern than those of the three altarpieces. The altarpieces in the German Church, Stockholm, and in St Nicholas’s Church, Örebro, resemble each other: they are both triangular, three-storey compositions with columns and entabulatures, figures of evangelists, apostles, angels and angels’ heads combined with scrollwork. The one in Vadsbro, on the other hand, is late medieval in character, with a central corpus and flanking side-doors; its columns, figures and scrollwork, however, are of the same modern design as that of the other two altarpieces.
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