This statue by the Prague-based sculptor Ludwig Šimek dates back to 1868. It is one of the marble statues of personalities from Austrian military history that stand in a hall at the entrance to the Heeresgeschichtliches Museum (HGM) in Vienna. The statues were created subsequent to a resolution by Franz Joseph I in 1863. All sixty statues have exactly the same height, although there were numerous different artists and sponsors involved.
Feldmarschall Gottfried Heinrich Graf zu Pappenheim (1594 – 1632) was an imperial cavalry commander during the Thirty Years War. The enthusiasm with which he and his men went to work was legendary and later became proverbial. He was killed at the battle of Lützen which the Swedish, Protestant side both won (Wallenstein retreated) and lost (their king died too).
The conditions for this scan were more challenging than my first scanning attempt which was a bronze outdoors cossack. This was indoors, limited 360 degree access, and mostly on a ladder during a museum day with reasonably heavy traffic. But in the end the mesh required less fixing at the back than anticipated.
Many thanks to the HGM museum team for their time, their help with traffic and also for the ladder !
