In addition to portraits, the oeuvre of Franc Berneker includes several maquettes for gravestones and monuments. Between 1908 and 1918, he made a number of such designs, adopting realist social themes (following the example of Constantin Meunier), but failed to receive any commissions.

On the fateful Sunday evening of 20 September 1908, two Slovenian youths, Ivan Adamič and Rudolf Lunder, were shot by the Austrian army during the anti-German demonstrations in Ljubljana. Later that month, the Slovene National Committee announced a competition to design their memorial. Berneker’s design depicts the full-length figures of the two youths standing on a fresh mound of soil in front of an obelisk. Rudolf Lunder stands in a frontal position, looking ahead with pride, and embraces the younger Ivan Adamič, killed at barely 15 years old, with his left arm. The latter holds a palm branch in his right hand, and a burial shroud envelops both young men. The sculpture is softly modelled and imbued with unambiguous meaning.