Richard Wagner

Born in a Poland partitioned between Austria, Prussia and Russia, this son of a musician showed a precocious gift for sculpture. As a young adult, Boleslas Biegas moved to Paris, where he soon joined the inner circle of artists supported by the noted critic and author Guillaume Apollinaire and the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren, among others. Already both a musician and a sculptor, he developed a love of playwriting and painting as well. He organized notable musical evenings in a salon open to all disciplines in the Wagnerian spirit of a synthesis of the arts. In this sculpture, Richard Wagner, one of the most important German composers of the nineteenth century, is depicted playing the harp, with his bent head and sinewy fingers amplifying the drama of the moment.