Person

Cesar, Josef (1814-29.06.1876)

Sculptor, medallist, and die-engraver.

Cesar was born in Vienna in 1814. After training with a metalworker, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts under Johann Nepomuk Schaller, Joseph Kähßmann and Luigi Pichler.

He became a member of the Academy in 1848 and of the Künstlerhaus in 1866. When on the occasion of his coronation as King of Lombardo-Venetia in 1838, Emperor Ferdinand I granted amnesty to the Italian revolutionaries imprisoned in the Brno fortress of Spielberg (Špilberk/CZ), the mint engraver Joseph Cesar, who was in Rome as a pensioner from 1837 to 1842, also produced a medal in 1840, which was struck either in Rome or in Vienna.

In addition to portrait medals and commemorative coins, he also worked on the sculptural busts of famous actors on the Court Opera House and on the forecourt of the Vienna City Hall the figure of the baroque architect Johann Fischer von Erlach was made by him. Cesar is considered a teacher and patron of the sculptor Rudolf Weyr.

Josef Cesar died in Vienna in 1876.

Lit.: A. Mayr, Kaiser Ferdinand I. (1793-1875) und die Medaille. Die Medaillenproduktion am Hauptmünzamt in Wien zwischen 1835 und 1848 in kunsthistorischem und historischem Kontext, unpubl. phil. Diss. Vienna (2020) pp. 123-124, 555; E. Fiala - J. Müller - J. Raudnitz, Katalog der Münz- und Medaillenstempelsammlung im Münzkabinett des Kunsthistorischen Museum Wien IV (1906) p. 1377; L. Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists 1 (1904) p. 388; VII (1923) pp. 172-173.

https://d-nb.info/gnd/1274018951

http://viaf.org/viaf/96325022

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Cesar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josef_Cesar

https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5936517

https://ikmk.smb.museum/ndp/person/13451