Antonín Pavel Wagner

After completing secondary school, he entered the firm of Adolf Dittrich, a canvas merchant in Prague, to learn the trade.

He spent six years in his studio as an assistant; working on commissions in Hradec Králové, Kutná Hora, and his hometown.

[1] In 1857, he moved to Vienna, where he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts and studied with Franz Bauer.

He was given an award at the 1873 Vienna World's Fair and, the following year, represented Viennese sculptors at a celebration of the 400th anniversary of the birth of Michelangelo in Florence.

However, due to the small demand for monumental sculpture in Bohemia, he achieved little fame there until his work on the Theatre, when he was already forty-seven years old.