Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian polymath active during the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

[3] On September 13, 1869, on the centennial anniversary of Humboldt's birth, the cornerstone for a monument honoring him was laid in Fairmount Park, on a knoll overlooking the Girard Avenue Bridge, by the city's German society.

[4] The statue on Humboldt was designed by Friedrich Drake, a German sculptor based in Berlin.

[6] Several years later, in 1876, on the centennial of American independence, the statue was gifted to the city of Philadelphia and dedicated again.

Humboldt is wearing a long coat, with his left hand on a globe.