Teodor Rygier

Teodor Rygier (9 October 1841, Warsaw – 18 December 1913, Rome) was a Polish sculptor known especially for his Adam Mickiewicz Monument in Kraków, Poland. He was selected in the major competition by popular demand.

Life Rygier studied in several European cities: Warsaw, Dresden, Munich and Vienna. In 1865-1866 he studied sculpture in both Berlin and Paris. Subsequently, Rygier lived and worked in Florence between 1873 and 1886, and from 1886 in Rome.

The competition for Adam Mickiewicz Monument

When the remains of Polish national bard Adam Mickiewicz were returned from Paris, a university youth proposed that a monument to the great poet be erected in his home town of Krakow. In the years 1882–1888, a committee was set up to conduct a public competition for the monument design. Teodor Rygier took part in all three stages of the contest, and was awarded the rights to produce the monument by popular demand. His work was commissioned ahead of that of more than 60 artists, including the renowned Cyprian Godebski, professor at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg from Paris, who had won first prize in the competition. The artistic committee made numerous requests to Rygier for revisions to his work, delaying its completion. The monument was finally unveiled on 16 June 1898 for the 100th anniversary of Mickiewicz's birth.

The monument design is conventional for its time. The poet is raised on the pedestal; four symbolic groups are represented on the base: Motherland i.e. Poland (front), Science and learning – an old man with a boy (side on Florianska Street), Poetry (side facing Church of St. Wojciech), and Patriotic love or Valour (facing Sukiennice Hall). All bronze figures were cast in the Nellich foundry in Rome.