JOHANN GOTTFRIED, an eminent sculptor of Germany, was born of poor parents, at Berlin, in 1764. Having made an elopement in his 21st year, his father-in-law subsequently forgave him, and furnished him with the means of proceeding to Italy, where he remained, diligently engaged in the study of the antique, till 1788. The first work of importance which came from his chisel after his return to Berlin, was the monument to Count Van-der-Mark, erected in 1790, in the Church of St Dorothy, at Berlin. Schadow was one of the first of his countrymen to break through the classic conventionalisms of his predecessors, and was one of the earliest to discover the dignified simplicity and natural elegance which slumbered behind those fixed classical forms. He put forth all his genius upon portraits, and it came back to him in ever-increasing reputation. He was appointed professor in the Academy of the Fine Arts at Berlin, in 1788, and its director-in-chief in 1822. A very large proportion of the best sculptors of the day, in Germany, were pupils of Schadow's. There were Rauch and Tieck, of Berlin; Dannecker, of Stuttgart; Zauner, of Vienna; Ruhl, of Cassel; and Pozzi, of Mannheim, all learned to handle the chisel under his eye. He died at Berlin, on the 25th of January 1850, aged 86.

The best works of Schadow are his equestrian statue of Frederick the Great, at Stettin; General Zieten; Field-Marshal Blücher, at Rostock; General Taenzenstein, at Breslau; Duke Leopold of Dessau, at Berlin; Luther, at Wittenberg; a colossal group, in marble, of Queen Louise of Prussia, and her sister, the Duchess of Cumberland; and the quadriga on the Brandenburgh Gate, at Berlin. He likewise wrote the following works:—Witternberg's Denkmäler der Bildnerkunst, Baukunst und Malerei, etc., 1825; Polyklet, etc., Berlin, 1834; Nationalphysiognomien, etc., Berlin, 1835.

Rudolf, the eldest son of Schadow, born in 1785, and died at Rome in 1822, displayed decided genius in his father's art. Friedrich-Wilhelm, who was in 1843 ennobled by the King of Prussia, was Schadow's second son, and has gained for himself a great reputation as a historical and portrait painter.