The Mounted Amazon Attacked by a Panther (1929)
Auguste Kiss (1802–1865)

Description Audio Download Audio Slideshow
  • Philadelphia Museum of Art at the Benjamin Franklin Parkway (installed 1929)
  • Bronze Height 11'3" (base 17')
  • Initiated by the Fairmount Park Art Association
  • Owned by the City of Philadelphia

The Mounted Amazon Attacked by a Panther was the work of German sculptor Auguste Kiss. Caught in the midst of the attack, the figures convey the violence and emotional tension of the moment. The Amazon was installed in 1837 at the steps of the newly built National Museum in Berlin, standing alone for several years until Albert Wolff completed a companion piece, The Lion Fighter. The Fairmount Park Art Association acquired the plaster casts for both works in 1889, but the Amazon cast was in such poor condition that it could not be shipped to the United States.

With the assistance of the German government, a new plaster cast was made from the original bronze and exhibited in Memorial Hall until 1909. The decision to commission only American art prompted the Art Association to present the Amazon as a gift to Harvard's Germanic Museum. However, once construction began on the new building for the Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Art Association arranged to cast another copy so that it could sit across from The Lion Fighter.

Adapted from Public Art in Philadelphia by Penny Balkin Bach (Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1992).

The Mounted Amazon Attacked by a Panther

Click here to download audio
To download file, right click (control-click) link and select "Save Link As..." or "Download Linked File"

Voices heard in the program:

Ann Kuttner is is professor of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Judith Schaecter is a Philadelphia-based artist who works primarily in the museum of stained glass.

Thayer Tolles is Associate Curator of American Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 

Segment Producer: Ben Shapiro

Vimeo Video

Voices heard in the program:

Ann Kuttner is is professor of Greek, Roman, and Etruscan art at the University of Pennsylvania. 

Judith Schaecter is a Philadelphia-based artist who works primarily in the museum of stained glass.

Thayer Tolles is Associate Curator of American Sculpture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. 

Segment Producer: Ben Shapiro