Sculpture and Carving

(b Schweinfurt, Sept 1, 1677; d Nuremberg, Dec 1, 1740).

German medallist. Having been apprenticed to his father as a gingerbread baker, he studied drawing and sculpture at the Akademie in Nuremberg. He then spent several years travelling in the Netherlands, England and Switzerland, where he was employed for about a year (1701) by the Bishop of Chur at the local mint. Settling in Nuremberg in 1704, he joined the guild of gingerbread bakers as a master but also became a die-cutter at the mint. The first medal that can be securely attributed to him (Bernheimer, no. 2) dates from 1710 and is signed with a v. In the following two years Vestner executed 34 medals commemorating the coronation of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI in Frankfurt and in Bratislava (Ger. Pressburg) and the homage ceremony in Nuremberg. In 1712 he cut the dies for 96 medals (Bernheimer, nos 523–618) in a series of 250 papal portraits issued by ...

[Domenico di Polo]

(b Florence, c. 1480; d Florence, c. 1547).

Italian medallist and gem-engraver. Vasari stated that he was a disciple of the gem-engraver Giovanni delle Corniole (c. 1470–c. 1516), and it is known that he studied the same craft with Pier Maria Serbaldi da Pescia, whose atelier he entered in 1501. He appears to have spent his entire career as court medallist for Alessandro de’ Medici (1510–37), 1st Duke of Florence from 1531 (e.g. 1534; Pollard, nos 321–2) and Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–74), Duke of Florence from 1537 and Grand Duke of Tuscany from 1569 (e.g. Pollard, nos 327–32). None of his works is signed, but a group of medals and several cameos and gems (e.g. Head of Hercules, Florence, Uffizi) have been attributed to him, after having been separated by de la Tour from the work of Francesco dal Prato. His medal showing a figure of Florence (Pollard, nos 332–32a) and, for ...

(b Csillaghegy, Feb 28, 1926).

Hungarian sculptor and medallist . He studied (1946–51) under Béni Ferenczy at the Fine Arts College (Képzőmüvészeti Főiskola) in Budapest. His early works reveal Ferenczy’s influence but in later works he also remained faithful to the principles of his teacher. In the mid-1950s Vigh developed his own unique style. His brooding sculpture was indebted to, and drew upon, European sculpture; it was concerned with the essence of things and followed a logical and organic path. His familiarity with the properties of rolled sheet metals—copper, aluminium etc—played a decisive role in his development, as he explored ways of working these metals into moulded sculptures and medallions. The first work in this new style was his memorial plaque (in situ) to the writer Gyula Krúdy (lead, 1958) on the corner of Krúdy Gyula Street and József Boulevard in Budapest. The sculpture, besides depicting the writer and the atmosphere of his work, can be read as a visually stimulating play of forms and planes and a balance of tensions in an assured design. It also embodies the most typical characteristics to be found in Vigh’s larger, later works: great simplicity and a synthetic design pared down to its barest essentials. The sheet metals express a carefully thought-out idea by being moulded in such a way as to avoid breaking up the planes. Although Vigh consciously avoids intimacy and the expression of emotion, his monumental works are full of human content. Some of his more exceptional works are ...

(b Massalubrense, Naples, March 13, 1625; d Naples, ?July 1695).

Italian sculptor, silversmith and architect. He was a pupil and collaborator of Dionisio Lazzari. His independent activity in and around Naples dates from 1661, when he carved the wooden choir-stalls in the church of S Pietro ad Aram, Naples. His first sculptures are the bronze statue of St Francis Xavier (1664; Naples Cathedral, Cappella del Tesoro) and the silver Christ (1670; Naples, Santa Trinità dei Pellegrini), which reveal a relative freedom from the Baroque tradition. Like other Neapolitan artists, Vinaccia retained an ambiguity between traditional and archaic forms and more modern stylistic elements.

Vinaccia is better known for his decorative stucco work in the vault of the oratory of Nobili, near the Gesù Nuovo (1682), and in the Congregazione dell’Immacolata, near the Gesù Vecchio (1691). He also produced silver liturgical objects such as crucifixes, candelabra, reliquaries and frames for altar-cards. The large silver antependium for the altar of the Cappella del Tesoro in Naples Cathedral is his most important work, and the representation of the ...

(b Berlin, Oct 6, 1800; d Trieste, Oct 13, 1874).

German medallist and gem-engraver. He trained as an engraver in Berlin with the founder and engraver Friedrich Vollgold (b c. 1790) and also with the medallist Leonhard Posch. From 1820 to 1825 he worked at the minting works of Gottfried Bernhard Loos (1773–1843) in Berlin. He then travelled to London, where he worked at the Royal Mint under Benedetto Pistrucci, and from there via Paris and Milan to Rome, where his career was furthered by Bertel Thorvaldsen. From 1830 onwards he worked as chief medallist at the Royal Mint in Munich, an office that he held until he moved once again to Rome in 1857. Voigt was a very prolific engraver and his work is among the best of the 19th century. Among the Bavarian coins, special mention should be made of the series of Geschichtstaler (historical thalers) showing the head of Ludwig I of Bavaria on the obverse of every coin and some important event from Bavarian history on the reverse. In Rome Voigt cut several dies for the Papal Mint. His numerous portrait medals reflect his contacts with the ruling houses of Germany, as well as with major artists of his day, such as Thorvaldsen, Peter Cornelius, Ludwig von Schwanthaler and Jakob Rauch. The models for his medals, executed in wax, are in the ...

(b Chigwell, Essex, May 25, 1959).

English painter, sculptor and video artist. He studied in London at the Chelsea School of Art (1978–81) and Goldsmiths’ College (1983–5). From the mid-1980s his work has addressed the traditions and values of British society, its class system and organized religion. The range of approaches he has adopted reflects his wish to have a broad appeal and highlights his roots in a tradition of British left-wing thought. In the early 1990s he began using a personal enthusiasm for horse racing as a theme through which to explore issues of ownership and pedigree. Race Class Sex (oil on canvas, four parts, each 2.3×3 m, London, Saatchi Gal.), consists of four highly finished renderings of thoroughbred race-horses. As well as evoking the equestrian portraiture of George Stubbs, these works also direct attention toward issues of identity and the inheritance of social structures. This thematic culminated in A Real Work of Art...

(b Liège, bapt Feb 6, 1607; d Paris, Aug 26, 1672).

French sculptor, medallist and painter. He was one of the most eminent French medallists and a sculptor of considerable reputation during the first half of the 17th century. He trained in the Liège workshop of his father, the medallist and chaser Jean Warin. By 1615 the family had left Liège, perhaps for Sedan, and by 1625 Warin was in Paris, where in 1629, having renounced his Protestantism, he took part charge of the Monnaie du Moulin during the minority of the heirs of the Olivier family, its hereditary owners. Having secured his position by marrying their widowed mother, he took charge of the studio of the Lyon mint around 1642–3, and in 1646 he was appointed Tailleur Général des Monnaies de France, to which in the following year he added the office of Contrôleur Général des Poinçons et Effigies des Monnaies de France. He became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in ...

(b Florence, 1697; d Florence, ?1765).

Italian medallist. One of the most characteristic exponents of Florentine Baroque medallic art, he was apprenticed to Jacopo Mariani and Giovanni Bottari, then studied sculpture under Giovanni Battista Foggini. In 1720 he became a pupil of Massimiliano Soldani, medallist and die-engraver at the Florentine Mint. Grand Duke Cosimo III de’ Medici appointed Weber as Soldani’s successor (1722), a position he held until late in life. From 1743 to 1749 he made plaquettes, snuff boxes, medals and similar items for the Doccia porcelain manufactory. According to his autobiography (1753) he engraved over 250 coin dies for the mints of Florence and Lucca but, while no coins with his signature have been recorded, most portraits on these 1722–65 coinages are probably by him. In an inventory (1753; Vannel and Toderi) of his medals he records 23 pieces. Others, originating after 1753, can probably be added, such as ...

(b Karlsruhe, Dec 11, 1870; d New York, Aug 8, 1952).

American sculptor and medallist of German birth. He was brought up in New York from the age of ten. He was apprenticed as a carver of wood and ivory under F. R. Kaldenberg, also studying at the Cooper Union School and later for five years at the studio of the sculptor Philip Martiny. From 1895 he served as assistant to Olin L. Warner and from Warner’s death in 1896 until 1898 he worked under Augustus Saint-Gaudens. There then followed five years in the studio of Charles H. Niehaus (1855–1935) and two years under Daniel C. French, with whom he worked on the figures of The Continents (1907) for the New York Customs House. In 1906 he set up his own studio.

Saint-Gaudens was without doubt the major influence on his work, and most of Weinman’s work was, like that of Saint-Gaudens, modelled to be cast in bronze. He belonged to the generation of sculptors working in the USA who continued the French tradition of naturalistic, Romantic bronzes well into the 20th century. His statue of ...

(b Altenburg, Dec 16, 1661; d Gotha, Dec 3, 1739).

German medallist . He trained in Dresden as a die-cutter with Ernst Caspar Dürr ( fl 1683–92) and as an engraver with a man named Pieler. In 1686 he became a die-cutter at the Mint of the House of Schwarzburg in Sondershausen, becoming Court Medallist to the House of Saxe-Gotha in 1688. He refused the post of die-cutter in Berlin offered to him in 1703. Although he remained in Gotha, he received the title of Royal Prussian Court Medallist. In 1699 he received an Imperial privilege that permitted him to strike medals in his own house and was intended to protect his work against unauthorized imitation. In his workshop he trained numerous apprentices, including his three sons and his eldest daughter, as expert die-cutters. More than 1300 medals were produced in this workshop, among them a series of 214 portraits of Roman and Holy Roman Emperors, about 100 satirical medals, numerous pieces for members of the European royal families (e.g. ...

(b Arizona, 1950).

American jeweler, sculptor, painter, and silversmith, of Mescalero Apache–Navajo descent. White Eagle began his career as a silversmith under the tutelage of legendary Navajo artisan Fred Peshlakai , at age five, learning by observation and developing an artistic understanding of Peshlakai’s aesthetic approach. At nine, he began making and selling his own jewelry at Union Square in Los Angeles. Later moving to Palm Springs, CA he continued to generate and sell his jewelry on the street under the date palms trees.

Always handmade, his jewelry pieces used the finest available quality of semi-precious stones. Singular details and features demonstrated his exclusive and unique artistic vision and styling. In 1973, the Yacqui artist, Art Tafoya, began a silversmith apprenticeship with White Eagle, studying the hand-stamped old style embossing skills of jewelry; he continued the historic creation of extraordinary designs.

Bold and substantial, White Eagle’s jewelry balanced a focal fluid turquoise stone against deeply carved flora and linear design lines. His pieces represented transcultural combinations of traditional Navajo silver interwoven with mainstream expectations of Native American style. He daringly counterbalanced mixed semi-precious stonework with irregular fusions of silver positive space. Smooth, amazingly detailed stamp work combined with bent offset features providing an overall asymmetrical daring quality....

(b Heiligenstadt, Eichsfeld, March 24, 1872; d Apeldoorn, 1945).

Dutch medallist . He studied applied arts in Amsterdam and fine arts at the academies of Antwerp and Brussels, going on to the Académie Colarossi and the Académie Julian in Paris; he also trained with the sculptor Denys Puech. In 1898 he won a competition with a gold, silver, and bronze plaquette in low relief, which was presented by the City of Amsterdam to Queen Wilhelmina in commemoration of her coronation. This encouraged him to undertake more small-scale work, and he trained in Paris under the medallist Henri Auguste Jules Patey (1855–1930) before joining the Royal Mint, Utrecht. His early medal designs, such as those for the Java Syndicate of Sugar Refiners (gold) or the commemoration of the birth of the Princess Juliana in 1909 (silver), are usually symmetrical and of an extreme intricacy, with trees and flowers playing an important part. They won him international fame in the early 20th century; he was knighted in ...

(b Warsaw, Sept 21, 1879; d Warsaw, March 3, 1941).

Polish sculptor . He studied at the medal workshop of Josef Tautenhayn (b 1868) at the Akademie der Bildenden Künste in Vienna (1897–1900), in the workshop of the medallist Hubert Ponscarme at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (1900–02), and also with Alexandre Charpentier. From 1903 onwards he exhibited at the Salon and at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1914 he returned to Poland, where he was appointed Professor of Sculpture at the School of Fine Arts, Warsaw (1915–20), and spent the next two years at the Faculty of Architecture of Warsaw Polytechnic. He was a member of the Rhythm group .

In Wittig’s first phase (up to c. 1907), his work was inspired by Symbolism and the ideas of Rodin, and it already shows the disciplined Maillol-like forms that started to predominate before World War I and reached their fullest expression in the stone sculpture ...

(b Neufchâteau, Vosges, 1532; d Damblain, Haute-Marne, 1599).

French goldsmith, painter, sculptor, medallist and engraver . He followed his father and grandfather in working as a goldsmith until c. 1555, after which he was primarily active as an engraver. In that year he received two privileges for the Pinax iconicus (Adhémar, 6), published in 1556, and the Livre d’anneaux d’orfèvrerie (Adhémar, 19), published in 1561 with a dedication to the poet Barthélemy Aneau. Around 1556 he executed three engravings with historical or mythological subject-matter, the Bull of Phalaris, Hasdrubal’s Wife Throwing Herself on the Pyre and Phocas Led Captive before Heraclius (Adhémar, 21–3). It was previously thought that Woeiriot went to Italy after 1550 and settled in Lyon on his return in 1554, but it now seems that he did not leave for Rome until c. 1559–60. At the end of 1561 he was in Nancy; he continued to make frequent visits to Lyon until 1571. On 1 December 1561...

(b Brussels, April 16, 1858; d Brussels, Dec 13, 1929).

Belgian jeweller, designer and sculptor . The son of the master goldsmith Louis Wolfers (1820–92), he graduated from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Brussels in 1875 and entered his father’s workshop as an apprentice, where he acquired a comprehensive technical training. Influenced by the Rococo Revival and Japanese art, in the 1880s he created sensitively curved pieces in gold and silver decorated with asymmetrically distributed floral motifs, which heralded the Art Nouveau style (e.g. ewer, Le Maraudeur, c. 1880; Brussels, Musées Royaux A. & Hist.). After 1890 he produced two kinds of work: goldsmithing and jewellery designs for production by Wolfers Frères and one-off pieces that were produced to his own designs in the workshop that he had established c. 1890–92. Typical of the latter are Art Nouveau goldsmiths’ work and jewellery (e.g. orchid hair ornament, 1902; London, V&A), crystal vases carved into cameos and ivory pieces. Ivory was then in plentiful supply from the Congo, and from ...

Irish family of medallists . William Woodhouse (b Dublin, 1805; d Woodville, Co. Wicklow, 6 Dec 1878), son of John Woodhouse (i) (d 1836), a Dublin die-sinker, trained in Birmingham with the medallist Thomas Halliday ( fl 1810–54). His medal of George Gordon, 6th Baron Byron (bronze and white metal; see Brown, i, no. 1222), engraved on the poet’s death in 1824, won a Society of Arts prize. In 1828 he executed a medal of Daniel O’Connell (silver, white metal and brass; see Brown, i, nos 1325–6). Having returned to Dublin, where he set up his own business, throughout the 1830s and 1840s he produced medals for a wide range of societies and institutions. When he retired in the 1850s his son John Woodhouse (ii) (b Dublin, 1835; d Dublin, May 1892) took over the unfinished work. He had studied at the art schools of the Royal Dublin Society and cut his first die in ...

English family of medallists and sculptors . Thomas Wyon (i) (1767–1830) was Chief Engraver of His Majesty’s Seals; his elder son, Thomas Wyon (ii) (1792–1817), was Chief Engraver at the Royal Mint. The latter’s cousin and the most important artist of the family, William Wyon (1795–1851), expected to succeed him at the Mint in 1817, but instead the position went to Benedetto Pistrucci. However, from 1822, when Pistrucci refused to use Francis Chantrey’s bust of George IV as a basis for the coinage, Wyon, as Second Engraver, assumed responsibility for the coinage and became de facto Chief Engraver.

The accurate, clear portraits, the quality of design and the technically perfect engraving of Wyon’s work make him the definitive medallist of 19th-century England. His portraits of Queen Victoria were used on all British coinage until 1887 and for all postage stamps until 1902. Medallic design, however, provided Wyon with greater opportunity for artistic creativity. His lifelong admiration for John Flaxman is reflected in the ...

(b c. 1720; d London, Dec 3, 1779).

English medallist. He may have been responsible for engraving some admission tickets for the entertainments at Vauxhall Gardens, London, in the 1730s. His first known medals, and his best, are those commemorating the Battle of Culloden of 1746. Both the official medal (gold and bronze; see Hawkins, Franks and Grueber, ii, no. 283) and the larger medal portraying William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, as Hercules (gold, silver and bronze; hfg, ii, 278) demonstrate Yeo’s mastery as an engraver, while the imaginative allegorical reverses combine effectively with decorative Rococo flourishes. In 1749 he was appointed Assistant Engraver to the Royal Mint, London, and in 1775 he was promoted to the position of Chief Engraver, a post he retained until his death. In the 1760s and 1770s he made the dies for a number of coins of George III. His relatively small number of known medals includes the exquisite Cambridge University Chancellor’s medal of ...