Ludwig Cauer came from a family of sculptors and trained under his father in Rome, going on to study with Albert Wolff and Reinhold Begas from 1886-1888.
In 1889 Cauer won his first major commission for the Hutten-Sickingen Monument at Ebernburg Castle in Bad Munster am Stein.
Cauer then travelled to London and stayed there for two years from 1891 to 1893, exhibiting at the Royal Aacademy, before returning to Berlin in 1895 where he worked with Reinhold Begas on monumental sculptures, including the Kaiser Wilhelm Monument and the fountains at the Bismarck National Monument. In 1916, he became a professor of the Berlin Academy.
This 1888 sculpture depicts the young figure, from Greek mythology, of Telemachos, son of Odysseus and Penelope and a central character in Homer’s Odyssey. The young warrior is arming himself to fight against a group of warriors who had besieged his fathers’ house, holding his mother against her will. His magnificent Corinthian style helmet, disguised Telemachos from the warriors enabling him to free his mother and reunite her with Odysseus.
Cauer first exhibited the original model of Telemachos at the Royal Academy in 1892 and then at the Paris Salon of 1895, where he received an honourable mention, and then finally at the Exposition Universelle , where it also won a medal.
Despite the success of the work, casts of Telemachos, are rare. One example is in the collection of the Berlin National Gallery, further casts are in private collections in Hanover and the U.K.
