Joseph Edgar Boehm

Sir Joseph Edgar Boehm, (July 6, 1834, Vienna - December 12, 1890, London) - British sculptor, miniaturist and medalist, best known for the Jubilee head of Queen Victoria on coinage, and the statue of the Duke of Wellington at Hyde Park Corner His oeuvre is substantial and he exhibited 123 works at the Royal Academy, from 1862 to his death in 1890

After a further period of study in England, he was so successful as an exhibitor at the 1862 International Exhibition that he decided to devote more time to portrait busts and statuettes, chiefly equestrian He moved to England in 1862, and became a British subject three years later A colossal statue of Queen Victoria, executed in marble (1869) for Windsor Castle, and the monument of the Duke of Kent in St George's chapel, were his earliest great works, and so entirely to the taste of his royal patrons that he rose rapidly in favour with the court In 1874 he completed a substantial statue of John Bunyan (1628–1688) which was unveiled on 10 June at St Peter's Green, Bedford, by Lady Augusta Stanley, before a crowd of 10,000 He became an Associate of the Royal Academy in 1878, was appointed sculptor in ordinary in 1881 and was elected to the Royal Academy in 1882 In 1889 he was created a baronet, of Wetherby Gardens in the Parish of St Mary Abbots, Kensington, in the County of London

The largest of his early works were a large statue of Queen Victoria, carved from marble in 1869 for Windsor Castle, and a monument to Prince Albert in the chapel of St. George; These works fell to the taste of his patrons from the royal family, as a result of which Bohm quickly took up position at the court. In 1878 he became a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of Arts and was approved in this rank shortly after the completion of the work on the statue of Carlyle on the Thames Embankment in Chelsea. In 1881, he was appointed court sculptor of the Queen, and the following year became a full member of the Academy of Arts.

In 1887, he designed and executed the model for the dies for a series of coins, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the queen's reign The coins are signed JEB below the shoulder This design was severely criticised by his peers as well as the public It was replaced in 1893 The coins depicted the royal arms in the order of the garter on the reverse As a result, the sixpences were frequently gilded and passed off as gold half sovereigns Therefore, the sixpence reverted to its standard design

Boehm is responsible for a large free-standing statue of Queen Victoria in Queen's Square, Sydney

A speciality of Boehm's was the portrait bust; there are many examples of these in the National Portrait Gallery He was often commissioned by the Royal Family and members of the aristocracy to make sculptures for their parks and gardens His most important works include St George and the Dragon, which can be found outside the State Library of Victoria, and Francis Drake His large sculpture of the stallion King Tom (1874) was commissioned by Baron Mayer Amschel de Rothschild for his new mansion, Mentmore Towers, and moved to Dalmeny House in 1982

There are many statues by Boehm in London For the memorial to General Charles George Gordon in St Paul's Cathedral, he carved an effigy of Gordon recumbent on a sarcophagus His equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington at Hyde Park Corner, unveiled in 1888 was commissioned to compensate for the removal of the colossal sculpture of the Duke by Matthew Cotes Wyatt from the nearby Wellington Arch to Aldershot On the death of Dean Stanley, Boehm was commissioned to execute his sarcophagus in Westminster Abbey Among his ideal subjects, the "Herdsman and Bull" is notable

Boehm's most famous pupil was the Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, daughter of Queen Victoria She was at his house, at 76 Fulham Road in London, when Boehm died suddenly on 12 December 1890, provoking unsubstantiated press speculation about a sexual relationship between the two
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