REINHOLD

See also:

• BEGAS, KARL (1794–1854)
• REINHOLD BEGAS (1831- )

BEGAS (1831- )  , German sculptor, younger son of Karl Begas, the painter, was born at Berlin on the 15th of July 1831 . He received his early education (1846-1851) in the ateliers of C . D . Rauch and L . Wichmann . During a period of study in Italy, from 1856 to 1858, he was influenced by Bocklin and Lenbach in the direction of a naturalistic style in sculpture . This tendency was marked in the group " Borussia," executed for the facade of the exchange in Berlin, which first brought him into general notice . In 1861 he was appointed professor at the art school at Weimar, but retained the appointment only a few months . That he was chosen, after competition, to execute the statue of Schiller for the Gendarmen Markt in Berlin, was a high tribute to the fame he had already acquired; and the result, one of the finest statues in the German metropolis, entirely justified his selection . Since the year 187o, Begas has entirely dominated the plastic art in Prussia, but especially in Berlin . Among his chief works (luring this period are the colossal statue of Borussia for the Hall of Glory; the Neptune fountain in bronze on the Schlossplatz; the statue of Alexander von Humboldt, all in Berlin; the sarcophagus of the emperor Frederick III. in the mausoleum of the Friedenskirche at Potsdam; and, lastly, the national monument to the emperor William (see BERLIN), the statue of Bismarck before the Reichstag building, and several of the statues in the Siegesallee . He was also entrusted with the execution of the sarcophagus of the empress Frederick .

See A . G .

Meyer, " Reinhold Begas " in Kiinstler-Monographien, ed . H . Knackfuss, Heft xx . (Bielefeld, 1897; new ed., 1901) .