Friedrich Karl Moest

Karl Friedrich Moest (also Carl Friedrich Moest: 26 March 1838 - 14 August 1923) was a German sculptor.

Life Moest was born in Gernsbach, a short distance to the east of Baden-Baden. He learned drawing skills, etching on copper and steel, how to use a chisel, marquetry and wood carving from his father, who was a Gunsmith. His first employment was in Pforzheim where he worked in a silverware factory as a modeller and engraver. Later, he was making molds for the decorative coverings attached to the top parts of corks on bottles of expensive wine. For several years he worked intensively in order to be able to finance his higher education, but this appears to have exhausted him, and two months after enrolling at the Technical University of Munich he succumbed to typhoid.

His first sculptures were portrait busts, including one of the artist August von Bayer (1803-1875), one of the minister Wilhelm Lamey (1854-1910) and another of Franz von Roggenbach (1825-1907). He was also employed by Dyckerhoff & Widman, a building supplies company which specialised in architectural embellishments and molded cement sculptures (among other things). One of the company's more visible contracts was with the Karlsruhe city council for the construction of its "Galatea" fountain. Moest carried out the work.

In 1890 he submitted a design for a memorial to the recently deceased emperor. His submission came third and was then disqualified because, it was recorded, it used the "wrong" scale. In the end it was Adolf Heer whose design won that competition. Moest had better luck with the competition for a Karlsruhe Bismarck Memorial. The initial competition was concluded without a winner being declared, but it was then rerun and won by Fridolin Dietsche. However, Dietsche was a young man, and the judges gave the commission to second placed Karl Friedrich Moest (who had submitted three different proposals) because, it was reported, they believed that Dietsche would have many more opportunities to present his work. Ironically, Dietsche predeceased Moest who lived to an old age. Rudolf Moest, singer (22 April 1872 - 28 April 1919)