Johannes Schilling
(b Mittweida, 23 June 1828; d Dresden, 21 March 1910). German sculptor. He enrolled at the Akademie, Dresden, at the age of 15, from 1845 training under Ernst Rietschel. He then studied (1851-2) at the Akademie in Berlin, where his tutors included Friedrich Drake, and again (1853-4) at the Dresden Akademie, partly as assistant to Ernst Julius H?hnel. From 1854 to 1855 he was in Italy on a scholarship, and from 1857 he had his own studio in Dresden. Among his notable early works were a frieze for the vestibule of the Dresden Museum (1853; Dresden, Gem?ldegal. Alte Meister) and a monument to Oberb?rgermeister Demiani (1861-2) for G?rlitz. He became especially well-known for his sandstone groups of the Four Times of the Day for the stairway to the Br?hl Terrace in Dresden (1863-8; recast in bronze, 1908). After the death of Rietschel, Schilling helped to complete the latter's monument to Martin Luther, Worms, producing an Allegory of the City of Speyer (1868). In the same year Schilling became a professor at the Dresden Akademie. He subsequently undertook numerous commissions for sculptural work in Dresden. Most notable among these were a monument to Rietschel (1868-72; unveiled 1876), a panther quadriga for Gottfried Semper's opera house (1877), an equestrian monument to King John of Saxony and obelisks for the House of Wettin (both 1889), a monument to Gottfried Semper (1892), and gable decorations for the Akademie (1894). Works outside Dresden included monuments to Emperor Maximilian of Mexico in Trieste, and to Friedrich Schiller in Vienna (both 1876), a war memorial for Hamburg (1877), a monument to The Reformation (1883) and the Niederwald monument (unveiled 1883; both Leipzig). During his later years Schilling received relatively few commissions: the style he had brought to Dresden, ultimately derived through Rietschel from Christian Daniel Rauch, had long been outmoded.
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