PETTRICH, FERDINAND. - Sculptor, b. in Dresden on 3 Dec. 1798, d. in Rome on 14 Feb. 1872. He entered the good graces of Prince Anthony of Saxony, who took him along to Rome (1819), entrusting him to Canova and Thorwaldsen; the latter kept him as a favorite pupil.
Between 1825 and 1834 he modeled the statues of Justice and Peace for the Roman church of S. Maria degli Angeli, then collaborated on the great frieze of the Walhalla of Louis II of Bavaria in Regensburg and executed the bust of King Otto I of Greece. Having thus achieved a certain notoriety, in 1835 he followed Thorwaldsen's advice to devote himself to the study of the original types and forms of the Indians of North America, in which sculpture would have found a new field. He therefore spent in Washington (1836-43) his most fortunate and fruitful period of activity, during which, among other things, he set his hand to no fewer than 33 plaster models reproducing figures and historical scenes of the indomitable Blackfeet. Pius IX wished this collection to be secured for Rome (1857-1858) «so as to see preserved in the capital of the world the last remnants of a people that was about to disappear» and gave it a place in the Lateran Palace, where it was later annexed by Pius XI (1926) to the Pontifical Missionary Museum.
After a long stay in Brazil (1843-57) - a statue of his of Napoleon figures in the Museum of Rio de Janeiro - P. returned to Europe and lived, at the Pontiff's wish, in the City, greatly loved by Overbeck and Cornelius. He executed the monument to Cardinal Bartolomeo Pacca in S. Maria in Campitelli (1863), that to Count Hohenthal in Hohenpriesnitz (Eilenburg), the busts of CardinalsAntonelli and Reisach and of Fr. Theiner, now in the Vatican Archives. He was buried in the Teutonic Cemetery.
Bibliography6 worksin addition to the exhaustive monograph by P. Dalla Torre, Le plastiche a soggetto indigeno nordamericano del P. nel Pont. Museo Mission. Et
BIBL.: in addition to the exhaustive monograph by P. Dalla Torre, Le plastiche a soggetto indigeno nordamericano del P. nel Pont. Museo Mission. Etnolog., in Ann. Lateran., 4 (1940), pp. 9-96, with bibliography and unpublished documents, cf. A. Bresciani, La gallicia dei ritratti de' selvaggi in Laterano, in Civ. Catt., 4th series, 1839, I, pp. 540-549; Moroni, XCIII, p. 223; W. Schmidt, The statues, baseliefs and busts of North American Indians (1833-56), in The Pont. Museum of the Lateran, Rome 1926; F. Noack, Das Deutschum in Rom vom Ausgang des Mittelalters, Berlin-Leipzig 1927, see index; G. Bugatto, Le statue indiane del Museo Miss. Etn. Lateranense e il loro autore, in L'Illustrazione Vaticana, 15 Jan. 1931, pp. 33-38; anonymous, Guida per la Collezione Indiana collocata nel Museo di S. Giov. in Laterano, Rome n.d.
Dalla, Torre Paolo. “Pettrich, ferdinand.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX, coll. 1307–1308. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952. https://azioneromana.com/article/pettrich-ferdinand.
MLA
Dalla, Torre Paolo. “Pettrich, ferdinand.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. IX, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952, coll. 1307–1308. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/pettrich-ferdinand.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec9_pettrich_ferdinand,
author = {Dalla, Torre Paolo},
title = {Pettrich, ferdinand},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {IX},
pages = {1307--1308},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1952},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/pettrich-ferdinand}
}
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