Schwanthaler, LUDWIG MICHAEL

Schwanthaler, LUDWIG MICHAEL, a German sculptor, was born on 26th August 1802, at Munich, the descendant of an old family of Tyrolean sculptors, and was trained in the Munich Academy of Art and in his father's workshop. After a visit to Rome he set up a studio at Munich, and, being brought under the notice of King Louis, was charged to execute for the Glyptothek several bas-reliefs and figures. In 1832 he revisited Rome, for the purpose of preparing models for the national monument of Valhalla and the Pinakothek. On his return to Munich (1834) he began his bas-reliefs and sculptures for the Königsbau. In 1835 he was appointed professor at the Munich Academy. The number of his works is singularly great, while their excellence places him in the first rank of German sculptors. Yet, spite of his power of design, he is somewhat conventional in his conception; and his influence on art has not been all for good. The multitude of his commissions is responsible for a good deal of work being left to his assistants, and for the lack of careful finish such work shows. Among his remaining efforts may be mentioned two groups for the gable ends of the Valhalla, the colossal statue of Bavaria, 60 feet high, that stands in front of the Temple of Fame, statues of Goethe, Jean Paul Richter, and Mozart, of Venus, Diana, Apollo, Bacchus, &c., and many others, both groups and single figures. He died on 28th November 1848, leaving his models to the nation. See Art Journal (1880).