Christian Daniel Rauch

Christian Daniel Rauch - Apprenticeship with Friedrich Valentin and Johann Christian Ruhl

Christian Daniel Rauch was born in Arolsen on 2nd January 1777. Although his father was valet de chambre to the Prince of Waldeck, the family lived in relatively modest circumstances. Despite this, Rauch received a good education, which included private language lessons in Latin and French, and at the age of thirteen, began an apprenticeship with the sculptor Friedrich Valentin in Helsen. When Valentin ran out of commissions, the now eighteen-year-old Rauch went to Kassel, where he assisted the court sculptor and academy professor Johann Christian Ruhl. Among other things, Rauch was involved in the decoration of Wilhelmshöhe Palace during this time. After the death of his father and older brother, Rauch had to look after his mother and younger brother: he became valet de chambre to Frederick William II and was only able to pursue his artistic ambitions on the side, studying antiquities and art history at the Berlin Academy of Art.

Johann Gottfried Schadow's assistant; travels to Italy

After the king's death, Christian Daniel Rauch accompanied his daughter-in-law Luise on several journeys and established contacts with many artists at the art academy, including Karl Kretschmar and Karl Wichmann. He had particular respect and great esteem for Johann Gottfried Schadow, to whom he had stood as official assistant since 1803. Schadow recognised Rauch's great talent and encouraged him to the best of his ability, but because the Queen turned down all requests for release from service, the artist had to sculpt late in the evening and at night. King Friedrich Wilhelm III finally granted him a six-year scholarship to study in Italy, and he travelled through Germany, Switzerland and France to Italy with the young nobleman Karl Sandretzky. In Rome, he met and became friends with the Prussian envoy to the Vatican, Wilhelm von Humboldt, who in turn put him in contact with many other artists and scholars, including the classicist sculptors Bertel Thorvaldsen and Antonio Canova. He found accommodation in the Casa Buti artists' hostel and lived in Carrara for a time with Christian Friedrich Tieck in a work group.

Favourite of the king and the most important sculptor in Europe

Following Humboldt's intercession, Christian Daniel Rauch was commissioned to create a reclining statue of the deceased Queen Louise. He did this in his Italian workshops and was stunned to learn from the newspaper that the ship that was to take the finished statue to Prussia had been hijacked - the monument did, however, arrive in Cuxhaven by a circuitous route, and Rauch was just able to repair all the damage before the king returned home from the Congress of Vienna to inspect the work. He returned to Berlin in 1815 and founded what Peter Bloch later called the Berlin School of Sculpture. Christian Daniel Rauch was a diligent, restless worker and for a time was the busiest sculptor in Europe. His most famous works include the large equestrian statue of Frederick the Great in Berlin and the statue group Faith, Love, Hope in the Arolsen town church. He also finished numerous busts for the Walhalla in Regensburg, for example Gerhard von Scharnhorst and Anton Raphael Mengs. He surpassed his former teacher Schadow and refused to comply with King Ludwig of Bavaria’s instructions for the design of a monument.

Christian Daniel Rauch died on 3rd December 1857 in Dresden.