PETTRICH, FERDINAND. — Sculptor, b. in Dresden on 3 December 1798, d. in Rome on 14 February 1872. He won the favor of Prince Antonio of Saxony, who brought him with him 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; he subsequently collaborated on the great frieze of the Walhalla of Louis II of Bavaria in Regensburg and executed the bust of King Othon I of Greece. Having thus achieved a certain renown, 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, for which sculpture might thereby find a new field. He therefore spent in Washington (1836–43) the most successful and productive period of his activity, during
which, among other things, he undertook no fewer than 33 models reproducing historical figures and scenes of the indomitable Pelliresse. Pius IX wished this collection to be brought to Rome (1857–1858), « in order 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 subsequently incorporated by Pius XI (1926) into the Pont. Missionary Museum.
After residing for a long time in Brazil (1843–57)—a statue of Napoleon by him is in the Museum of Rio de Janeiro—P. returned to Europe and, at the Pope’s desire, lived in the Urbe, highly esteemed 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), and the busts of Cardinals Antonelli and Reisach and of Fr. Theiner, now in the Vatican Archives. He was buried in the Campo Santo Teutonico.