Bathing Nymphs

Johann von Halbig
(German, 1814-1882)
Bathing Nymphs
1867
Carrara marble
(80.218)
Gift of the Unrestricted Development Fund
University of Missouri

At the age of seventeen Johann von Halbig became a student of Johann Ernst Mayers at the Polytechnikum in Munich where he became professor in 1846. During his lifetime he received many commissions for portrait busts, architectural decorations, and funerary monuments, most notably that of Maximilian II in 1856. Ludwig I of Bavaria invited him to do various decorative work. Examples of van Halbig's architectural decorations can be found on the portal of the Alte Pinakothek (1835), the north gate of the Munich Hofgarten (1840), the entrance to the Hermitage in St. Petersburg (1841-1843), and the main portal of the Wittelsbach Palace (1848), to name a few.

A prolific sculptor, von Halbig created almost one thousand naturalistic portrait busts. Some were commissioned for the Hall of Fame at Walhalla, for the Maximilianeum in Munich, and for the Hall of Liberation near Kelheim. Although von Halbig created many public monuments with allegorical figures in marble and bronze, his commissions for private individuals were few.

Bathing Nymphs is a late manifestation of the Neoclassical style promulgated in Germany by Schadow, Rauch, and Schwanthaler. It was sent to an American patron.

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