Fame, 1850, by CHRISTIAN DANIEL RAUCH (1777-1857), Queen’s Lift Corridor, Osborne, Isle of Wight
A bronze statuette of a female winged figure representing Fame sitting on a rock, her body facing slightly to the right, wearing classical dress with a laurel wreath in her hair, holding a pen in her right hand and holding a scroll resting on her knee with her left hand. This statuette is a reduction of a marble statue of Fame made by Rauch for the Walhalla, a German pantheon designed by the architect Leo von Klenze, commissioned in 1825 by Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, and completed in 1842. The statuette was cast by the Berlin foundry of Christoph Fischer, one of Rauch’s collaborators. It is the companion to the bronze reduction of Rauch’s statue of Victory (RCIN41615), presented at the 1851 London Great Exhibition and acquired by Queen Victoria for Osborne House on 19 November that same year.
Purchased by Queen Victoria on 19th November 1851 (QV Journals 1851/79). Placed in the Princesses Corridor at Osborne. Recorded in the 1876 Inventory of Osborne House (Vol II, p 248).