Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel

Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel studied at Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. Adolf von Donndorf, Robert Johann Salemann and Johannes Schilling are recorded as having studied under Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel. The recorded working language is German. Places of work recorded in the authority are Berlin, Rome and Palermo. Employment is recorded with Dresden Academy of Fine Arts. Works named in the authority record are Goethe–Schiller Monument and Martin Luther Monument. Work by Ernst Friedrich August Rietschel is recorded in the collections of J. Paul Getty Museum, Städel Museum, Royal Museum of Fine Arts Antwerp, National Museum in Warsaw and Berlinische Galerie. Distinctions recorded are Pour le Mérite for Sciences and Arts order and Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and Art.

• Born — 15 December 1804 • Birthplace — Pulsnitz, Saxony • Died — 21 January 1861 • Place of death — Dresden • Works — Luther Monument • Illustration — Monument to Ernst Rietschel by Johannes Schilling, Bruhl's Terrace, Dresden • Illustration — Rietschel's grave at Trinitatisfriedhof in Dresden, sculpture by Adolf von Donndorf, his disciple.

Rietschel was born in Pulsnitz in Saxony the third child of Friedrich Ehrgott Rietschel and his wife Caroline. From the age of 20 he became an art student at Dresden, and from 1826 was a pupil of Rauch in Berlin. He there gained an art studentship, and studied in Rome in 1827–28. After returning to Saxony, he soon brought himself into notice by a colossal statue of Frederick Augustus, King of Saxony; was elected a member of the academy of Dresden, and became one of the chief sculptors of his country. In 1832 he was elected to the Dresden professorship of sculpture, and had many foreign orders of merit conferred on him by the governments of different countries. He died in Dresden in 1861 aged 56. He is buried in the Trinitatisfriedhof, north-east of the city centre.

He married three times. Firstly in 1832 to Albertine Trautscholdt. In 1836 he married Charlotte Carus daughter of Carl Gustav Carus. Finally in 1841 he married Marie Hand (1819–1847). From the third marriage he had a son Georg Rietschel.

• Illustration — Rietschel Monument Pulsnitz - Saxony - Market Square • Illustration — Lessing Monument (German: Lessing-Denkmal) in Braunschweig; cast by Georg Ferdinand Howaldt. • Illustration — Luther Monument in Washington, D.C., copy of Rietschel's work in Worms. • Illustration — Goethe–Schiller Monument in Weimar. • Illustration — Goethe–Schiller Monument in Milwaukee