Karl Friedrich Moest

Karl Friedrich Moest
Memorial to Frederick I of Baden in Badenweiler, by Carl Friedrich Moest
Born	26 March 1838 Gernsbach, Grand Duchy of Baden
Died	14 August 1923 Karlsruhe, Republic of Baden, Germany
Occupation	Sculptor
Spouse(s)	Louise Himmel (1839-)
Children	(1866-1948) (1868-1945) (1872-1919)

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

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 Munich Technical Academy he succumbed to typhoid. He returned to his home town to convalesce and then enrolled at the nearby Karlsruhe Technical Academy to study machine construction, chemistry and architecture. After half a year he decided for a more artistic focus, studying at the city's Fine Arts Academy where he was taught by Adolf Des Coudres and Johann Wilhelm Schirmer. Another of his teachers was the sculptor (1829-1897), who had rented a studio of his own in the academy's new building in the Bismarck Street ("Bismarckstraße") where he taught both Moest and Gustav von Kreß.

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). His teacher, Carl Johann Steinhauser, obtained him a contract to produce (under Steinhauser's supervision) a memorial for Heinrich Hübsch, an architect and, locally, the chief building inspector, who had died in 1863. From 1863 Moest was himself employed as a drawing teacher at the Karlsruhe Fine Arts Academy. After producing more portrait busts and the large sandstone caryatid for the Mannheim city hall he undertook, in 1864, an extensive study tour of Italy which enabled him to study, in particular, the masterpieces of Michelangelo, Canova and Thorwaldsen. After getting back he produced more portrait busts. Subjects included Johann Wilhelm Schirmer, Georg Gottfried Gervinus, Wilhelm Lamey, the Princess of Wied. It was also around this time that he produced his first larger work, the group composition "Minerva with Trade and Industry", on top of the main railway bridge across the Rhine in Mannheim (later destroyed in the Second World War). This built up his reputation and further important commissions followed. In 1870 he applied to visit London where he war able to study the ancient sculptures and plaster castings at the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.