Louisa Edith Church Maryon (9 February 1872 – 2 May 1924), better known asEdith Maryon, was an Englishsculptor. Along withIta Wegman, she belonged to the innermost circle of founders ofanthroposophy and those aroundRudolf Steiner.
Edith Maryon was the second of six children. Her parents were John Maryon Simeon and his wife Louisa Church who lived in London where she grew up. She attended a girls school and later went to a boarding school in the Swiss city ofGeneva. During the 1890s she studied sculpture inLondon at the Central School of Design, and from 1896 at theRoyal College of Arts. One of her professors there,Édouard Lantéri, termed Maryon and fellow studentBenjamin Clemens his best students.[1] She exhibited at the Royal Academy. Her works of that period showed her leaning toward the subject of Christianity, such as a model of Michael, the reliefThe Seeker of Divine Wisdom andThe Cross of Golgotha.[2]
Maryon met Rudolf Steiner in 1912/13 and after the summer of 1914 she moved toDornach. She worked with Steiner on the construction of thefirst Goetheanum, and with him on the modelling and carving of the wooden sculptureThe Representative of Humanity. Steiner designed the nine-metre high sculpture to be placed in the first Goetheanum. Now on permanent display at the second Goetheanum, it shows a central, free-standing Christ holding a balance between the beings ofLucifer andAhriman, representing opposing tendencies of expansion and contraction.[3][4] The sculpture was intended to present, in contrast to Michelangelo'sLast Judgment, Christ as mute and impersonal such that the beings that approach him must judge themselves.[5][6]
At a foundation meeting held during Christmas 1923 Steiner nominated Maryon as leader of the Section for the Plastic Arts at the Goetheanum[7] (or Sculptural Arts)[8] (GermanSektion für Bildende Künste).[9] The following May, she died oftuberculosis.
^The Representative of Humanity Between Lucifer and Ahriman, The Wooden Model at the Goetheanum, Judith von Halle, John Wilkes (2010)ISBN9781855842397 from the GermanDie Holzplastik des Goetheanum (2008)[1]Archived 2 May 2014 at theWayback Machine
^Rudolf SteinerChrist in Relation to Lucifer and Ahriman, lecture May, 1915[2]
Translated into English asSteiner, Rudolf (2023). Dietler, Urs (ed.).The Mystery of Death: The Nature and Significance of Central Europe and the European Folk-Spirits. Collected Works of Rudolf Steiner. Vol. 159. Translated by Blaxland de-Lange, Simon. London: Rudolf Steiner Press.ISBN978-1-85584-608-1.
Published online in part with translations as"The Mystery of Death: GA 159".Rudolf Steiner Archive. Steiner Online Library. Retrieved30 September 2025.
Biemond, Rembert (2003). "Edith Maryon". In von Plato, Bodo (ed.).Anthroposophie im 20. Jahrhundert: Ein Kulturimpuls in Biografischen Porträts [Anthroposophy in the 20th Century: A Cultural Impulse in Biographical Portraits] (in German). Dornach: Verlag am Goetheanum.ISBN3-7235-1199-6.
Raab, Rex (1993).Edith Maryon: Bildhauerin und Mitarbeiterin Rudolf Steiners [Edith Maryon: Sculptor and collaborator of Rudolf Steiner]. Pioniere der Anthroposophie (in German). Vol. XI. Dornach: Philosophisch-Anthroposophischer Verlag am Goetheanum.ISBN3-7235-0648-8.
Selg, Peter (2008).Rudolf Steiners Toten-Gedenken [Rudolf Steiner's Commemoration of the Dead] (in German). Arlesheim: Verlag des Ita Wegman Instituts.ISBN978-3-9523425-2-7.
Translated into English asSelg, Peter (2022).Edith Maryon: Rudolf Steiner and the Sculpture of Christ in Dornach. Translated by Barton, Matthew. Forest Row: Temple Lodge Publishing.ISBN978-1-912230-95-2.
