A Child’s Love. 1878. Marble

The sculpture is one of the four allegorical works created by August Weizenberg for the Koch family burial chapel. The sculptures were commissioned by Consul Andreas Koch, a Tallinn merchant, who had met the sculptor in Rome in 1877. In addition to the daughter mourning the loss of her mother, the works included a composition reminiscent of the Madonna called Motherly Love, a female figure with a palm branch and torch called Immortality, and a figure of a young man with a cross supported by an anchor, an allegory of faith and hope.
The sculptures, which were damaged during World War II, were given to the Art Museum of Estonia in 1946. A Child’s Love, which is the best preserved, shows that the memory of a beloved mother is eternal.

August Weizenberg (1837–1921) was the first professional Estonian sculptor; he initially worked in Berlin and Munich, and thereafter for a long time in Rome and St. Petersburg. He spent the last days of his life in Tallinn.