(b Nuremberg, 6 May 1813; d Nuremberg, 25 Dec 1882). German sculptor. After an apprenticeship as a metal worker, having spent seven years as a journeyman in a silver-plating factory and having taught himself drawing and sculpting, he received a scholarship that allowed him to attend art school. In 1840 he met Christian Daniel Rauch who invited him to Berlin as his pupil, and there he was influenced by the prevalent Neo-classical style. However, his early works, such as the colossal figure of Christ that he carved in 1842 for the church in Dinkelsbühl, Mittelfranken, owe much to the tradition of the medieval sculptors of Nuremberg. In 1846 he founded his own workshop and in 1850 sculpted the much admired marble statuette of the actress Elisa Rachel (Berlin, Pfaueninsel). At the Great Exhibition in London in 1851 he won a commendation for his two medallions of the Prince and Princess of Prussia. During his long career Afinger produced 116 portraits in the form of medallions, busts and statuettes. He also carved a series of saints in sandstone for the castle church of Sagan. He received many public and private commissions for monuments of various kinds, such as the Ernst Moritz Arndt monument (1865) and the Christ Fountain (1878), both in Bonn. In 1873 he visited Italy, joined the Senat of the Königliche Akademie der Künste in Berlin in 1875 and in 1877 received a professorship there.