Ferdinand von Miller
Illustration — Ferdinand von Miller (the elder) Ferdinand von Miller (18 October 1813 – 11 February 1887) was a German artisan who is noted for his furtherance of bronze founding.
Also recorded as Ferdinand Miller · Ferdinand Ritter von Miller
Ferdinand von Miller

D. Fuchsberger · CC BY-SA 3.0
- Full name
- Ferdinand Miller.
- Born
- 1813 · Fürstenfeldbruck.
- Died
- 1887 · Munich.
- Nationality
- Kingdom of Bavaria
- Occupation
- sculptor · engineer · metallurgist · politician · entrepreneur · molding worker · artist
- Honours
- Golden Citizen's Medal of the City of Munich
- Languages
- German
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Documentary summary
Illustration — Ferdinand von Miller (the elder) Ferdinand von Miller (18 October 1813 – 11 February 1887) was a German artisan who is noted for his furtherance of bronze founding.
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Note VALÉORINE
Ferdinand von Miller (1813–1887) was an artist, engineer and entrepreneur, among other activities and a national of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Born Ferdinand Miller in Fürstenfeldbruck, the artist died in Munich. Ferdinand von Miller held the positions of Member of the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies and member of the Reichstag of the German Empire and worked in Berlin.
Languages used include German. The artist received Golden Citizen's Medal of the City of Munich.
Composed from admitted, traceable facts · 27 September 2026
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Authority files
museum · 9195739080 · wikidata · Q72477 · wikipedia · Ferdinand von Miller
In this article
Career
Career
The recorded working language is German. Places of work recorded in the authority are Berlin. Positions recorded include member of the Reichstag of the German Empire and Member of the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies. Distinctions recorded are Golden Citizen's Medal of the City of Munich.
Ferdinand von Miller was born in Fürstenfeldbruck. After a sojourn at the academy in Munich and a preliminary engagement at the royal brass foundry, Miller traveled to Paris in 1833, where he learnt from Soyer and Blus the varied technique necessary for bronze working. He also visited England and the Netherlands, and after his return to Munich worked under his teacher and uncle Stiglmayr, whom the Crown Prince Ludwig had induced to devote himself to bronze foundry work and to the establishment of the Munich foundry as a state institution. Miller soon took his uncle's place, and upon the death of the latter was appointed inspector of the workshop. He soon won for it a worldwide reputation, and for himself a fortune and position of influence. • Illustration — Recast of the Bavaria statue's right hand, in the Deutsches Museum For the Bavarian hall of fame (Ruhmeshalle) in Munich Miller was commissioned with the casting of the Bavaria statue according to a design by Ludwig Michael Schwanthaler. Considered a masterpiece, the Bavaria statue (1844–1855) brought fame and fortune. Commissions came to him from far and near. He cast the statue of Herder, and the double statue of Goethe and Schiller, for Weimar, and also the figures of Duke Eberhard in Stuttgart, of Berzelius in Stockholm and two Washington monuments, by Mills in Boston and Crawford in Richmond, Virginia. He also cast the gate of the Capitol in Washington. In 1874 Miller was elected to the directorate of the society of art industries. The Munich exhibition of art and crafts in 1876 was reportedly largely Miller's work and the first German National Arts and Crafts Exhibition. Miller sought to win over artists to a general exhibition of German art in alliance with handicrafts. Drawing rooms, cabinets, boudoirs, sitting rooms and chapels were arranged so as to form in their grouping a whole by having art and trade appliances put into the place for which they were intended. Where this was not possible, a partition or a wall would be placed with picturesque effect in some adjoining room. Miller established a center of exhibition and sale for the society, and procured himself a home especially for the social intercourse of artists and art craftsmen. In 1840 he married Anna Pösl (1815–1890), daughter of the Chancellor of the regional government of Landshut, who bore him 14 children, including Ferdinand Freiherr von Miller, Oskar von Miller and Fritz von Miller. He died in Munich, and was buried in the Alter Südfriedhof in the same city.
Image gallery
Image gallery
• Illustration — Statue of Thomas Church Brownell at Trinity College, Hartford, Connecticut • Illustration — Clark Family Monument, Cedar Hill Cemetery, Hartford, CT (sculpted by Ferdinand von Miller in 1869). • Illustration — Statue of George Peabody, City of London (sculpted by William Wetmore Story in 1869) • Illustration — Benedict Family Monument, Riverside Cemetery, Waterbury, CT (designed by Truman H. Bartlett in 1871; sculpted by Ferdinand von Miller in 1872). • Illustration — Statue of Tomás Cipriano de Mosquera at the National Capitol of Colombia, Bogotá. (Inaugurated in 1883)
Ferdinand von Miller (the younger) and Oskar von Miller
Ferdinand von Miller (the younger) and Oskar von Miller
Ferdinand von Miller's son Ferdinand (1842–1929) followed in his father's footsteps and is known in the United States for some of the figures on the Tyler Davidson Fountain in Cincinnati (at the unveiling on October 6, 1871, at which he was honored). He also created the statues of Shakespeare, Columbus and Alexander von Humboldt in Tower Grove Park of St. Louis and of J. Marion Sims in New York. Another son of Ferdinand von Miller was Oskar von Miller, who became an engineer and founder of the Deutsches Museum, Munich.
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
Ferdinand von Miller was recorded at birth as Ferdinand Miller. The authorities additionally record the headings Ferdinand Miller and Ferdinand Ritter von Miller. His recorded language was German. His recorded confession was Catholicism. 3 children are recorded: Oskar von Miller, Wilhelm von Miller and Ferdinand Freiherr von Miller.
Identity
Identity
Ferdinand von Miller is recorded with the occupation molding worker. Recorded as sculptor, engineer, metallurgist, politician and entrepreneur. Career and activity. Recorded positions include member of the Reichstag of the German Empire and Member of the Bavarian Chamber of Deputies. He worked at Berlin.

Ferdinand von Miller, 1881, teilkolorierter Holzstich, ca. 13,5 x 12 cm
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Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
Explore 1813–1887
The full dated record · 6 entries
1813
Ferdinand von Miller was born in 1813 at Fürstenfeldbruck.
1844
Austriabrunnen is dated 1844.
1859
Christoph-von-Schmid monument is dated 1859.
1862
Schiller Memorial is dated 1862.
1871
Tyler Davidson Fountain is dated 1871.
1887
Ferdinand von Miller died on 11 February 1887.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Deutschland.
Country
Fürstenfeldbruck.
Birth place
Munich.
Death place
Bayern.
Administrative region
Context
Primary material
Context
The circumstances in which Ferdinand von Miller stands.
Documents and archives
Primary material
Documents and archives
authority record
- Wikidata, structured authority record Q72477: Ferdinand von Miller
General reference · Wikidata
reference work
- “Ferdinand von Miller”, English Wikipedia, consulted as further reading
Reputable secondary · Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Ferdinand von Miller.
- 2.Museums in Bavaria. Hall of Fame and Bavaria.
- 3.Leuven University Press. Between Conventional and Experimental: Mass Housing and Prefabrication in Modernist Architecture. 195. 2024. 9789462704046.
- 4.Thomas Church Brownell by Chauncey B. Ives. Hartford Art.
- 5.Prichard, Sarah Johnson. The Town and City of Waterbury, Connecticut. The Price and Lee Company. 1039. 1896.
- 6.Clubbe, John, ‚‘‘Cincinnati Observed: Architecture and History‘‘, Ohio State University Press, Columbus, OH 1992 p. 13
- 7.Andreas W. Daum, “Celebrating Humanism in St. Louis: The Origins of the Humboldt Statue in Tower Grove Park, 1859-1878,” in Gateway Heritage: Quarterly Magazine of the Missouri Historical Society (Fall 1994), 48‒58; ibid., “Nation, Naturforschung und Monument: Humboldt-Denkmäler in Deutschland und den USA,” in Die Kunst der Geschichte: Historiographie, Ästhetik, Erzählung, hg. v. Martin Baumeister, Moritz Föllmer, and Philipp Müller. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2009, 99‒124.
- 8.McCue, George, Photographs by David Finn and Amy Binder, ‘’Sculpture City: St. Louis, Sculpture in the “Gateway to the West”’’ Hudson Hills Press NY and Laumeier Sculpture Park, St. Louis, 1988 pp. 42-45
Bibliography printed in the source article · 3
- cites:
- , (Munich, 1888)
- Vincenz Müller,
References
Citations
References
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authority record
Secondary witnessreference work
Secondary witness
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 16 August 2026.
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