WOLF VAN HOYER (GERMAN, 1806-1873)

Baron Wolf Von Hoyer (1806-73) is most famous for his marble statue of Psyche, from a plaster of 1842, which was bought by Queen Victoria in 1851 and displayed in the entrance hall at Buckingham Palace. Born in Dresden, Von Hoyer was a pupil of Bertel Thorvaldsen and worked in Rome between 1837-49 and 1851-52. In 1861 he executed a statue Flora for the King of Saxony's Schloss Weesenstein, which has subsequently sadly been relegated to the park. He is also recorded to have worked at the Prussian royal palace of Sanssouci. The present statue is an early commission and remains in beautiful original interior condition. It is modelled with considerable skill, conveying the girl's youthful innocence with remarkable tenderness.