Statue Carl Hagenbeck and his lion Triest at the Hagenbeck Zoo, Hamburg (Germany)

Carl Hagenbeck took over the animal trade from his father Gottfried Claes Carl Hagenbeck and built the world's first cage-free zoo in Stellingen in 1907. In his zoo of the future, wild animals would only be separated from the public by invisible ditches. Carl Hagenbeck had a close relationship with many of his animals, especially with the lion Triest. He took great care of the animal when it was very sick. When Carl Hagenbeck tripped and fell during a visit to the Lion enclosure, several animals from the then still mixed group of predators pounced on him. Triest threw himself between them and saved Carl Hagenbeck's life. In memory of this human-animal relationship, his sons Lorenz and Heinrich Hagenbeck erected a bronze monument to their father in 1926 by the Berlin sculptor Rudolf Marcuse.

Rudolf Marcuse (1878–1940) was a German sculptor of Jewish ancestry. Most of his works were relatively small, and many were designed for porcelain. Rudolf Marcuse also created the portrait of the zoo director Carl Hagenbeck with the lion Triest in 1926 and cast into bronze by the Düsseldorf bronze foundry.

The Hagenbeck Zoo (Tierpark Hagenbeck) is a zoo in Stellingen, Hamburg, Germany. The collection began in 1863 with animals that belonged to Carl Hagenbeck Sr. (1810–1887), a fishmonger who became an amateur animal collector. The park itself was founded by Carl Hagenbeck Jr. (1844–1913) in 1907 and it is still operated and owned by the Hagenbeck family today. It is known for being the first zoo to use open enclosures surrounded by moats, rather than barred cages, to better approximate animals' natural environments. Over the years, the zoo has gained a good reputation for successfully breeding rare and endangered species such as the Asian Elephant and the Siberian Tiger.