Bohemian family of sculptors. (Ignác) Frantisek [(Ignaz) Franz] Platzer (b Plzen, 6 July 1717; d Prague, 24 Sept 1787) was apprenticed first to his father Jan Benedikt Platzer (1678–c. 1730), a minor wood-carver, and later possibly to Lazar Widman. At the age of 24 he began studies at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna, probably with Georg Raphael Donner’s pupil Johann Nikolaus Moll (1709–43), with whom he collaborated from 1742. In 1744 he married the widow of the sculptor Matej Schönherr and took over some of his commissions, such as the Trinity Column in Smecno. After 1746 he worked for Count Cernín on decorating the palace chapel and cemetery in Horín and also on the Cernín palace in Prague. For St Ursula’s church in Nové Mesto (New Town), Prague, he executed a statuary group of St John of Nepomuk (1747). From 1748 his workshop, by then the largest in Bohemia, embarked on a series of monumental works for monastery churches: first for the Cistercians at Zbraslav and then for the Servites at Staré Mesto (Old Town) in Prague. At the same time he made statues in a classicizing style for the façades and interiors of the aristocracy’s palaces, including the Sylva-Taroucca Palace in Prague and the Mansfeld Palace in Dobrís, for which, among other works, he made the Helios Fountain for the French garden. In 1750–61 Platzer produced for the spacious monastery church in Teplá a number of altars and sculptures. Drawings for the latter are extant. His reliefs show him to have been a masterly follower of the style of Donner.