Friedrich Ochs and Karl Dürck
Friedrich Ochs
The creative process of Elisabet Ney’s work was to execute a clay bust, which would then be cast in plaster. The plaster would then serve as the model for the final marble. Often the marble was created to completion or near-completion by specialized contractors. Friedrich Ochs was a German sculptor and business associate of Elisabet Ney, who was engaged on several occasions to execute this service. After King Ludwig II’s tragic death in 1886, Ney’s thoughts returned to Munich and all that her hasty departure left behind. After some time and effort she learned that her home and its contents, including her full-size standing plaster statue of the late King Ludwig, were still her property. Through the assistance of Karl Duerck, her attorney in Munich, Ney reestablished ownership of her estate, including the statue of Ludwig.
After the 1892 completion of her studio in Austin, Ney wrote Friedrich Ochs, asking him to ship her full-length portrait of King Ludwig II to Chicago from Germany. She was hoping to showcase this sculpture along with other pieces at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition. However, Ochs had just received permission to cut Ludwig’s portrait into marble and was not willing to part with the plaster cast. Even with the intervention of Ney’s friend Anton von Werner, Director of Berlin's Royal Academy, Ochs could not be persuaded. His copy of Ney’s Ludwig was completed in 1894 and stands to this day at Ludwig’s Herrenchiemsee Palace near Munich. Ney later had three plaster busts, likely Francis R. Lubbock, John H. Reagan and Carrie Pease Graham, shipped from Austin to Friedrich Ochs’s studio in Berlin. During her 1895 visit to Europe, Ney remained in Berlin for almost six months and likely oversaw their cutting in marble by Ochs. Ochs used Ney’s preference of Italian Carrara Marble, which was quite costly. Later, in 1902, she was able to retrieve her plaster original Ludwig plaster, which stands today in the Elisabet Ney Museum.
Karl Dürck
Karl Dürck served as Elisabet Ney’s attorney in Munich and managed many of her affairs in Europe after her immigration to the United States. Hoping to resurrect her career as a professional sculptor, Ney made an effort to publicize her European work in Texas. Writing to Dürck in 1888, she instructed him to reopen her Munich studio and ship several pieces to her, including the busts of Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Ludwig II, and Otto von Bismarck. Dürck also managed the sales of Ney’s German studio and the marble portrait of King Ludwig II in 1895 and her failed lawsuit against a German shipping company for damage done to the sculpture Sursum.