Balthasar Permoser's birthplace was Kammer, a town now part of the Upper Bavarian town of Traunstein.
Permoser is the most important and influential person who brought the formal ideas of Italian Baroque sculpture to Germany. His main works include the sculptural decoration for the Dresden Zwinger (from 1711), which is now considered the main work of Dresden Baroque.
He was productive well into old age; he worked on the Zwinger in his seventh decade of life. Balthasar Permoser found his final resting place in the Old Catholic Cemetery on Friedrichstrasse in Dresden. Permoser himself created his grave monument before his death: a large crucifixion group of Christ with four holy men and women: on the left, Joseph of Arimathea, looking up and supporting the unconscious Mary, the kneeling Magdalene snuggled up to her, and on the right, leaning far back, looking up at Christ, the Evangelist John; on the back, a ladder. The tomb was first restored in 1888 and finally, due to weather conditions, transferred to the cemetery chapel, which was extended for this purpose in 1914.