TILGNER, Victor Oskar

Austrian sculptor. He was born in Pressburg (now Bratislava), but the family moved to Vienna when he was a child. His talent was recognized early by the sculptor Franz Schönthaler (1821-1904), who became his first teacher. Then, at the Academy of Fine Arts, he studied under Franz Bauer (1798-1872) and Josef Gasser (1816-1900). Later, he was attracted to engraving and worked with the medalist Joseph Daniel Böhm (1794-1865).

He belonged to the circle of artists around Count Karol Lanckoroñski. During the World Exhibition of 1873, he met the French sculptor Jean-Baptiste Gustave Deloye, who strongly influenced his work and introduced him to the Baroque Revival style. The following year, he took a trip to Italy with Hans Makart, whose “realistic academicism” also influenced Tilgner’s style.

For the last twenty years of his life, he had a large studio in what was originally a greenhouse at the Palais Schwarzenberg in Vienna. He was a successful portraitist, modelling busts of many members of Vienna’s social elite. He was, however, passionately interested in monumental sculpture, and was responsible for the designs for the sculptural programmes adorning many of the most important public buildings on Vienna’s Ringstrasse, including the Burgtheater and the Naturhistorisches Museum. Most famously, he created the monument to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in the Burggarten.

Despite a long-standing heart condition and recurring chest pain, he spent a strenuous day working on his Mozart monument, to get it ready on schedule. He died of a heart attack the next morning. Often considered to be his greatest work, the monument was unveiled a few days after his death. The bulk of his estate was bequeathed to his hometown and is now on display at the Bratislava City Gallery.