Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Boehm, Joseph-Edgar
BOEHM, Joseph-Edgar, B.A., sculptor, was born in Vienna, July 6, 1834, of Hungarian parents. His father was Director of the Mint in the Austrian Empire, and possessor of a celebrated private collection of works of art. He was educated at Vienna, and from 1848 to 1851 in England. He studied also in Italy, and for three years in Paris, but has been settled in England since 1862. He received the first Imperial Prize, and exemption from military conscription in Vienna in 1856. He was elected a member of the Academy of Florence in 1875, and an Associate of the Royal Academy of London, Jan. 16, 1878. Mr. Boehm executed a colossal statue in marble of the Queen for Windsor Castle, in 1869; also a monument of the Duke of Kent in St. George's Chapel, and bronze statuettes of the Prince of Wales and all the Royal Family (for the Queen); also a colossal statue at Bedford of John Bunyan, 1872; and another of the Duchess of Bedford for the Park, Woburn Abbey, in gilded bronze, 1874; a statue of Sir John Burgoyne in Waterloo Place; a colossal equestrian statue of the Prince of Wales for Bombay, 1877; a statue of Thomas Carlyle; a monument at Deene to Lord Cardigan; a monument at Aldershot church to Sir York Scarlett; and a horse group in bronze for Eaton. He is at present engaged on a colossal equestrian statue of Lord Napier of Magdala; a colossal statue of Lord Northbrook, both for Calcutta; a marble statue of the late King Leopold of Belgium, for St. George's Chapel at Windsor; and a colossal statue of Sir William Gregory for Ceylon. He has also executed busts of Mr. Millais, the late Lord Lansdowne (now in Westminster Abbey), Mr. Whistler, Lord Shaftesbury, and Sir Henry Cole; a marble statue of Lord John Russell for the Houses of Parliament; and was commissioned by the Queen to execute a recumbent statue of the late Princess Alice and her daughter, Princess Maud, for the Royal Mausoleum at Frogmore, and a replica of it for Darmstadt. After the death of the Prince Imperial he was commissioned to execute a recumbent statue of him for Westminster Abbey; but public opinion being strongly against its being placed there, it was transferred to St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Mr. Boehm was elected a member of the Academy in Rome in 1880, and a full Academician by the Royal Academy here in Jan., 1882. A colossal statue of Lord Lawrence in bronze he lately executed for Waterloo Place, and a statue, twelve feet high, of William Tyndall (the first translator of the Bible into English) is being completed for the Thames Embankment, where also his statue of Thomas Carlyle is placed. Mr. Boehm is also executing a colossal statue of Sir Francis Drake for Tavistock. The Government gave him the order to execute the statue of Lord Beaconsfield for Westminster Abbey, and he has also a marble statue of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe and the late Dean Stanley in hand, both for Westminster Abbey. A recumbent effigy of Dean Duncombe for York was executed by Mr. Boehm from one of Mr. Street's last designs; also one of the late Duchess of Westminster. Mr. Boehm has made busts of Mr. Gladstone, Mr. John Bright, and Mr. Ruskin from life, and also a medallion of the Queen, which will serve as a model for the new coinage. He was nominated in 1881 Sculptor in Ordinary to the Queen, and he has delivered lectures on sculpture in the Royal Academy. In Aug., 1882, the gold medal given by Austria-Hungary at the Vienna Art Exhibition was awarded to Mr. Boehm.