Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston sculptures by VeronicaG
As you enter the Texas Capitol building and move towards the rotunda, you'll be greeted by the likenesses of Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin, brilliantly executed by sculptress Elizabet Ney. These lifelike statues were commissioned in 1893 for the Chicago World's Fair. Who was Elizabet Ney? She was born in Westphalia, Germany in 1833 to a stone carver and his wife. She married Edmund D. Montgomery, a Scottish scientist and physician in 1863 and settled in the United States during the next decade. Eventually, Ney, her husband and two sons moved to a plantation in Waller County, Texas.
Elizabet was schooled at the Munich Academy of Art, later moving to Berlin where she studied under Christian Daniel Rauch and her skills as an artist developed. After her marriage and the move to Texas, she oversaw their plantation while her husband did his research.
The Governor of Texas invited Ney to Austin in the 1880's, where she resumed her art. She sculpted Albert Sidney Johnston's likeness for his grave in the Texas State Cemetery (see that tip).
Elizabet was very active in the Austin cultural scene. Her studio in Austin became the Elizabet Ney Museum.
(info from wikipedia.org)