Artwork Details
- Title
- The Dying Lioness
- Artist
- Franz Alexander Friedrich Wilhelm Wolff (1816 – 1887)
- Year
- 1873; cast 1875; installed 1876
- Medium
- Bronze, on granite base
- Dimensions
- Height 5'9″, width 4', depth 4'1/2" (base height 4′, width 4'8 1/2", depth 4'5 1/2")
Artwork Description
Of the many sculptures at the Philadelphia Zoo, The Dying Lioness is one of the best known. The model for the sculpture won first prize at the Vienna International Exhibition in 1873, and it soon caught the attention of Herman J. Schwarzmann, master architect for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, who shared his discovery with Association for Public Art (then known as Fairmount Park Art Association). The emperor of Germany had already been promised the first casting of the piece, which was to be installed in the Imperial Garden in Berlin, and he granted the Association permission to purchase a second casting. It was first exhibited in Philadelphia at Earle & Sons Gallery at 8th and Chestnut Streets, and then outdoors as part of the sculpture exhibition at the 1876 Centennial.
The artist was the younger brother of Albert Wolff, sculptor of The Lion Fighter, and was known for his powerful and allegorical renderings of animals. The Association for Public Art’s Annual Report (1876) praises his depiction of “the maternal instinct, stronger than death, [which] has caused the dying lioness to give her last strength to the nourishment of her young; over the mother and the whelps stands the lion, the prominent figure of the group, who roars defiance, grief and rage.”
Content on this page was adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, 1992). Bach was the longtime Executive Director of the Association for Public Art, working with the organization from 1980 to 2022.
Artwork Credits
Purchased by Association for Public Art (formerly Fairmount Park Art Association)
Owned by the Zoological Society of Philadelphia