"Steel Worker"

(WORKER. Hammering in rivets)

Bronze 46 cm high (including black marble base), 1904

Signed: R. Kaesbach, Berlin

Rudolf Kaesbach 1873-1950

Kaesbach was born in 1873 at München-Gladbach. He studied at the Academies of Hanau and Brussels then worked for a few years at Düsseldorf. From 1904 he created from his studio in Berlin. He died in 1950.

This particular cast comes from the estate of Victoria, the Princess of Prussia (Sister of KaiserWilhelm II).The princess' grandmother was Queen Victoria of Great Britain. In a disastrous second marriage to a Russian confidence trickster, the princess became Victoria von Zoubkoff. Within two years she was declared bankrupt. Within three weeks after bankruptcy was declared, the Princess died.

A letter dated March 23, 1993 by the previous owner of the statue, Dieter Rhein, is on file. He describes (in German) that his father, Dr. Karl Rhein, bought the statue from the bankruptcy mass he was administering as solicitor to Victoria von Zoubkoff, Prinzessin von Preußen, in 1929. After Dr. Rhein's death in 1966, Dieter Rhein inherited the statue.

On file is also an article on the demise of Victoria von Zoubkoff (in German).