You are bidding on one handwritten, signed letter of the sculptor Ferdinand Seeboeck (1864-1952).

Autographs by Seeboeck are rare!

Letter Rome, 14. June 1897. Addressed to a Mr. von Fischer, ie probably the author and autograph collector Eduard Fischer von Röslerstamm (1848-1915). The letter comes from an autograph collection in which another letter to Fischer v. Röslerstamm was located.

Concerns first of all the sending of photographs.

"Of things for sale I have seated Sappho that I would make in marble in the size of the plaster model for 4500 lire. Furthermore, the N{???}lus lamp, which costs 1000 marks in bronze including electrical accessories. Also the group of fauns, which is also in bronze in the Deutscher Künstlerverein, and which I charge for 700 lire. Also the Venus group for 120 lire and the Kneippian for 100 lire. For my children's portraits I charge 1000 lire in marble. For portrait busts of adults 2000 marks."

He sends photographs of a fountain as soon as he has them.

"Forgive the bad handwriting, but I am writing in a hurry so that you can get the photographs right away.

With warmest regards, I remain your ever devoted F. Seeboeck, 118 Via Margutta."

Scope:4 p. (17.7 x 11 cm).

Internal note: Order 5c/7

About Ferdinand Seeboeck (source: wikipedia):

Ferdinand Seeboeck (* 27. March 1864 in Vienna; † 18 December 1952 in Rome) was an Austrian sculptor.

Life and work: Born as the son of Wilhelm Seeboeck, businessman, and Amalie Seeboeck, b. Bauer, the sixteen-year-old was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 1880 and studied sculpture with Edmund von Helmer. Enrolled until 1884, Seeboeck left his hometown of Vienna in 1885 to seek artistic inspiration in Italy. In 1889 he worked for a few months in the sculptor's studio of Adolf von Hildebrand (1847–1921) and it was probably here that he met the industrialist and art patron Ludwig Mond, who granted Seebock a scholarship. This allowed Seeboeck to settle in Rome, where he could rent one of the residential studios that the wealthy painter Alfred Strohl-Fern (1847–1927) had built in the park of his villa for young artists. Through his patron Ludwig Mond, Seeboeck found access to the circle of friends of Henriette Hertz (1846–1913), the founder of the Bibliotheca Hertziana in Rome, from whom he received commissions primarily for portraits. In 1894, for example, a marble bust of the art collector and writer Count Adolf von Schack (1815–1894) was created for his gallery in Munich.

Around 1885, Seeboeck was able to move into an apartment and studio on the legendary artists' street Via Margutta near the Spanish Steps, which he kept throughout his life. In addition to portrait commissions, Seeboeck earned his living by selling small sculptures. From Rome he maintained contacts in Germany and traveled there to do commissioned work, such as a memorial bust of the famous pastor Sebastian Kneipp (1821-1897), which was erected in Wörishofen in 1899. Exhibitions in his studio in Rome were also used for acquisition, so that after the turn of the century Seeboeck was able to rely on a whole range of more or less prominent clients. His studio guest book, which he kept until 1947, brought together almost everything that was significant in the Roman art world in those years.

In 1902, Seeboeck's bride Elisabeth Wegener-Passarge (1884–1902) died of typhus at the age of only 18. The stroke of fate drove the sculptor from Rome and took him to southern Germany in search of clients. The busts of the Würzburg theologian Hermann Schell (1850-1906) and a double bust of Grand Duke Ludwig von Baden (1826-1907) and his wife Luise von Prussia (1838-1923) were created there in 1903. 1905-1909 Seeboeck maintained a summer studio in Baden-Baden. In Rome in 1907 he made the clay model for a bust of Pope Pius X, which was then executed several times in marble. The work subsequently secured Seeboeck a whole series of commissions from church circles, also in Germany, where he portrayed the Cologne prelate and art collector Alexander Schnütgen (1843-1918) in 1909.

In 1913 Seeboeck was commissioned to create a monumental fountain sculpture in Hildesheim (cat fountain on the Neustadt market square).

Seeboeck spent the war years in Germany; it was not until 1919 that he returned to Rome. A Berlin child's portrait from 1918 is the only known work from this period. After the First World War, commissions were rare for the sculptor until 1922, when the bishop of Cleveland from Regensburg received an order for the USA for the first time, which was to be followed by others in the years that followed, supported by an illustrated article in the magazine Diechristian Kunst (1925 /26). For the Benedictine Abbey of St. Vincent in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, Seeboeck created larger-than-life marble statues of Benedict and other saints, as well as a monumental statue of the abbey's founder, Bonifaz Wimmer (1809-1887), which was unveiled in 1931.

Seeboeck, who had married the Roman Maria Giorgi (1888–1960) in 1923, also came into closer contact with the Salvatorian order in the 1920s. The Roman order general Pankratius Pfeiffer (1872-1945) commissioned Seeboeck with a Salvator statue for the general house in the former Palazzo Cesi, which was followed by further work orders for Rome, but also for religious branches in England and the USA. The last known work by Seeboeck was a plaster model for a statue of the founder of the order, Franziskus Jordan (1848–1918), which the 77-year-old had made in 1941.

In 1950, Seeboeck closed his studio on Via Margutta and moved with his wife to a smaller apartment on Via E. Gianturco, where he lived on 18 November 1950. Died December 1952. Two days later he was buried in the Campo Verano cemetery in Rome.

factories

Professor Andor Izsák (right) in 2013 in front of the bust of Siegmund Seligmann in conversation with Ernst August Prince of Hanover

A list of the known works in: G. Mayer, Ferdinand Seeboeck. Sculptors in Rome, Rome 2002, p. 59ff.

Work selection:

Statuette of Henriette Hertz (1846–1913) at a writing desk working on her monograph on Pinturicchio (Rome, Bibliotheca Hertziana), H. 21.5 cm, 1890s, bronze

Statue of Sappho (London, King's College), 1893, marble (commissioned by Ludwig Mond, donated to King's College in 1923 by the Estate of Frida Mond)[1]

Portrait bust of Adolf von Schack (1815–1894), art collector and writer (Munich, Schack Collection), 1894, H. 69 cm, marble

Portrait bust of Sebastian Kneipp (1821–1897), pastor and healer (Bad Wörishofen, Kneippianum Park), 1899, marble

Portrait bust of Marie von Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1855–1906) (Frascati, Villa Falconieri), 1907, marble

Portrait bust of Friedrich Paulsen (1846–1908), educator and philosopher (Bredstedt, Nordfriisk Instituut), 1908, plaster

Portrait bust of Alexander Schnütgen (1843–1918), Catholic theologian, Cologne cathedral canon, art collector and museum founder (Cologne, Schnütgen Museum), 1909/10, marble

Portrait bust Ernst von Mendelssohn Bartholdy (1846–1909), banker and patron (Frascati, Villa Falconieri), 1911, marble

Portrait bust of Ludovika Freifrau von Stumm-Ramholz, née von Rauch (1866-1945), benefactor of the Schluechtern Hospital (Schlüchtern, Villa Ludovika), 1912, marble

Portrait bust of Siegmund Seligmann (1853–1925), founder of the Gummiwerke Continental (Hanover, Villa Seligman), 1915, marble

Portrait bust of a girl with a teddy bear (private collection), H. 55 cm, 1918, plaster (inscribed: "Ferdinand Seeboeck Berlin 1918")

Colossal statue of Bonifaz Wimmer OSB (1809–1887), Bavarian Benedictine, founder of Benedictine monasticism in the USA. Founder and first abbot of St. Vincent's Abbey in Latrobe, Pennsylvania (Latrobe/Pennsylvania, St. Vincent's Abbey), 1931, bronze[2]

Hunting Diana (Rome, Bibliotheca Hertziana, inv. No. B20003), H. 49 cm, 1933, bronze (ref. "F. Seeboeck/ Roma. 1933")

literature

Curt Bauer: Ferdinand Seeboeck. In: The Christian Art, 22. Year 1925/1926, pp. 281-284. (Illustrations up to p. 288)

Seebock, Ferdinand. In: Hans Vollmer (ed.): General encyclopedia of visual artists from antiquity to the present. Founded by Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker. Volume 30: Scheffel–Siemerding. EA Seemann, Leipzig 1936, p. 425.

The Minster, 7. Year 1954, p. 123. (Obituary)

Günther Mayer: Ferdinand Seeboeck 1864-1952. sculptor in Rome. Self-published, Rome 2002.