Albert Wolff (sculptor)


Carl Conrad Albert Wolff was a German sculptor, and medallist.

Life and work

His father was the architect and sculptor, who died when Albert was only six. At the age of seventeen, he followed in the footsteps of his older brother and moved to Berlin, where he found a position in the workshop of his father's friend Christian Daniel Rauch and took night classes in anatomical drawing at a local art school. In 1844, he was sent to Carrara to produce statues for the terrace of Sanssouci.
After two years in Italy, he returned to Berlin, assisting Rauch on a monument of Frederick the Great, but he also worked free-lance, producing a fountain with Countess Raczynska represented as Hygieia and a marble crucifix for a church in Kamenz. Shortly after, he opened his own workshop. In addition to his larger works, he produced many smaller figures, statuettes and decorations that were widely copied.
In 1866, he was appointed a Professor at the Prussian Academy of Art and had many students who would become well-known, including his own son Martin. He was named an honorary member of the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts in 1881.

Selected major works