Ney, Elisabet, 1833-1907

From the Handbook of Texas Online :

Franzisca Bernadina Wilhelmina Elisabeth Ney, one of the first professional sculptors in Texas, was born in Münster, Westphalia, on 1833 January 26 to Johann Adam and Anna Elizabeth (Wernze) Ney, a Catholic stonecarver and his wife. Ney enrolled at the Munich Academy of Art in 1852 and, after her graduation two years later, moved to Berlin, where she studied with Christian Daniel Rauch, one of the foremost sculptors in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. Under Rauch's tutelage, Ney developed a classical style in the German tradition, with a tendency toward realism and a faithfulness to accurate scale. Through Rauch, she also became acquainted with Berlin's artistic and intellectual elite and sculpted her first works, among them portraits of such luminaries as Jacob Grimm and Alexander von Humboldt. During the late 1850s and 1860s Ney led a peripatetic life, traveling around Europe to complete portraits of intellectual and political leaders. Among her best-known works from this period are portrait busts of Arthur Schopenhauer, Giuseppi Garibaldi, and Otto von Bismarck and a full-length statue of King Ludwig II of Bavaria.

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