PETTRICH, FERDINAND. — Sculptor, born in Dresden on 3 Dec. 1798, died in Rome on 14 Feb. 1872. He came into the favour of Prince Anthony of Saxony, who took him to Rome (1819) and entrusted him to Canova and Thorvaldsen; the latter kept him as a favourite pupil.
Between 1823 and 1834 he modelled the statues of Justice and Peace for the Roman church of S. Maria degli Angeli, then collaborated on the great frieze of the Walhalla for Ludwig I of Bavaria in Regensburg and executed the bust of King Otto of Greece. Having thus achieved a certain renown, in 1835 he followed Thorvaldsen’s advice to apply himself to the study of the types and original forms of the Indians of North America, on which sculpture might find a new field. He therefore spent in Washington (1836–43) his most fortunate and fruitful period of activity, during which, among other works, he produced no fewer than 33 models depicting figures and historical scenes of the untamed Redskins. Pius IX wished this collection preserved in Rome (1857–58) “so that the last remnants of a people about to disappear might be seen conserved in the capital of the world,” and placed it in the Lateran Palace, where it was later annexed by Pius XI (1926) to the Pontifical Missionary Museum.
After a long sojourn in Brazil (1843–57) — one of his statues of Napoleon is in the Museum of Rio de Janeiro — Pettrich returned to Europe and, at the Pope’s wish, lived in Rome, much beloved by Overbeck and Cornelius. He executed the monument to Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca in S. Maria in Campitelli (1863), that to Count Hohenthal in Hohenpreisnitz (Eilenburg), and the busts of Cardinals Antonelli and Reisach and of Fr. Theiner, now in the Vatican Archives. He was buried in the Teutonic Cemetery.