(b c. 1693; bur Prague, 7 Feb 1748). Bohemian sculptor of German origin. His family were active as sculptors in Landshut and later in Mainz. He probably trained in Prague with Matej Václav Jäckel and perhaps in the Brokof family workshop. His earliest work seems to be a stone group of St John Nepomuk between Angels (Zebrák, Town Square) made in 1727 for Wenceslas Square, Prague. His first certain works date from 1728–30, when he decorated Kilian Ignaz Dientzenhofer’s church of St Hedwig at Wahlstatt, Silesia (now Legnickie Pole, Poland), supplying stone statues for the façade and wooden statues for the interior. In this commission he employed two kinds of figure types, often used thereafter in his work: one type is ponderous, with softly modelled draperies reminiscent of Classical Roman sculpture; the other has a small head and draperies arranged in numerous sharp folds. Hiernle used the first type in his carved wood decoration of the north altar in the Barnabite convent on the Hradcany, Prague. The features of the second figural type became even more pronounced in the signed stone groups made in 1730 for the Benedictine abbey at Broumov, Bohemia. These include an Annunciation and an Agony in the Garden as well as wood and stone statues of saints. In 1740 Hiernle worked at Brevnov Abbey, near Prague, with Dientzenhofer, carrying out decorations for the gateway, the church and the chapter house. The stone group of St John Nepomuk between Angels at Brevnov is also by Hiernle, whose sculptures are in a transitional style between late Baroque and the grace of early Rococo.

• Hiernle, Karl Josef
  • Czech Republic, §III, 3: Sculpture, 1620s–1780s