ABSTRACT
Christian Rauch is said to have told G. H. Lewes how Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's discussions on art at their first meeting had had a lasting influence on his own creative life. By far the most distinguished artist Marian Evans met in Germany, besides Franz Liszt, was the sculptor Christian Daniel Rauch. Following Wilhelm Schadow's petition to the King, Rauch was given permission to go to Italy and resume his artistic training in earnest. The precarious nature of high artistic achievement, demonstrated poignantly by the sudden loss of the creative gift, was to preoccupy George Eliot throughout her career as a creative artist. One of Ignaz von Olfers's contributions to the cultural life of Berlin was the furnishing of the New Museum. In 1844, Athanasius Graf von Raczynski had built a large house and gallery for the display of his collection just outside the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.
