The Lion Fighter (original 1858, cast 1892)
Albert Wolff (1814–1892)
- Philadelphia Museum of Art at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (relocated 1929)
- Bronze
- Height 14' (base 17')
- Initiated by the Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art)
- Owned by the City of Philadelphia
The original Lion Fighter sits as a companion piece to Auguste Kiss's Mounted Amazon Attacked by a Panther on the steps of the National Museum in Berlin. The Fairmount Park Art Association (now the Association for Public Art) purchased the original plaster cast for The Lion Fighter in 1889 and placed it in Memorial Hall for public viewing, along with a plaster version of the Amazon. This bronze was cast locally by the Bureau Brothers in 1892 for exhibition at the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago. When returned to Philadelphia, it was installed on a "jutting rock" on East River Drive. It was moved to the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1929, where—as in Berlin—it accompanies a bronze cast of the Amazon.
Adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992).
The Lion Fighter
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Voices heard in the program:
Ann Kuttner is is professor of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art at the University of Pennsylvania.
Judith Schaecter is a Philadelphia-based artist who works primarily in the museum of stained glass.
Thayer Tolles is Associate Curator of American Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Segment Producer: Ben Shapiro
Voices heard in the program:
Ann Kuttner is is professor of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art at the University of Pennsylvania.
Judith Schaecter is a Philadelphia-based artist who works primarily in the museum of stained glass.
Thayer Tolles is Associate Curator of American Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Segment Producer: Ben Shapiro
