Johann Heinrich von Dannecker

Who was Johann Heinrich von Dannecker?

Johann Heinrich von Dannecker was a German sculptor.

He was the third of five children of Georg Dannecker, a coachman of the nobleman Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg. In 1764, the family moved to Ludwigsburg. From 1772 to 1780, he was educated as a sculptor, together with Philipp Jakob Scheffauer. Initially, he studied under Adam Bauer, and, starting in 1775, at the military academy at Stuttgart. After finishing the academy in 1780, he traveled to Paris, Rome, Bologna and Mantua and returned to Stuttgart in 1790, where he worked as a professor at the Hohe Karlsschule until 1794. In 1804, he did the initial draft of "Ariadne on the Panther", which he finished from 1810 to 1824, generally regarded as his masterpiece and one of the most important sculptures of the 19th century.

After the death of his schooltime friend Friedrich Schiller, Dannecker created a bust of him, which was copied by his sculptor friend Reinhold Begas for the monumental Schiller statue erected on Berlin's Gendarmenmarkt. In 1823 and 1824 he created a bust of John the Baptist.