Anton Dominik Fernkorn
1813 – 1878

St. George Slaying the Dragon, 1853
60 x 22 x 44.5 cm
bronze
MG-344

Ban Josip Jelačić, 1863
bronze
59 x 59 x 47 x 23 cm
MG-343

Anton Dominik Fernkorn was Vienna’s leading foundryman and sculptor in the mid-19th century. He attended the Arts and Crafts School in his native Erfurt and moved to Munich in 1835 to specialise in Munich’s foundries. He established himself as a sculptor upon his arrival in Vienna in 1940. Modelled in the vein of Historicism, Fernkorn’s most prominent sculptures are his monumental equestrian statues, such as St. George Slaying the Dragon from 1853 and Ban Josip Jelačić from 1863, both modelled in bronze and both of whose studies are kept in the holdings of the National Museum of Modern Art.

Fernkorn’s St. George Slaying the Dragon is a historicist sculpture and an elegant dynamic composition of a knight raising his sword on a rearing horse and a dragon beneath the horse. Modelled in the Neo-Baroque style, the equestrian sculpture is a public monument located at Zagreb’s Republic of Croatia Square facing the Museum of Arts and Crafts.

Fernkorn’s Ban Josip Jelačić is a neoclassical portrait figure of the ban and the figure of a galloping horse. It features realistic details and is infused with a romanticised atmosphere in memory of Ban Josip Jelačić, a military leader and national hero who fought off the insurgents that rose against the Habsburg Monarchy in 1848. The monument is positioned at Zagreb’s central square, the Ban Josip Jelačić Square.

Text: Tatijana Gareljić, museum advisor of the National Museum of Modern Art © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb
Translated by: Ana Janković
Photo: Goran Vranić © National Museum of Modern Art, Zagreb