The most self-aggrandizing of the Baroque kings was the French Louis XIV, the Sun King. One of his later royal namesakes, the 19th-century Bavarian King Ludwig II, had not a little in common with Louis in regard to cultural pomp and universalist ambitions. But Ludwig did not have to look to France for a role model; he had at hand a rich reservoir of Baroque art and architecture, to which he did his utmost to add. Bavaria has been living on the resulting grandeur ever since—as have the arts, too, though in a completely different sense.

Stephan Huber is one of the most outstanding young sculptors