Lot Essay
Moritz Geiss championed the use of zinc for casting sculpture at his manufactory in Berlin. Zinc ornaments, at the vanguard of technical development at the time, had the advantage of being both easier to cast and cheaper to produce. A number of life-size copies of popular statues were displayed by Geiss at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert purchased a number of these to decorate the gardens of Osborne House.