Heralds at the Bremen town hall

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Heralds at the east portal of the Bremen town hall
Heralds at the east portal of the Bremen town hall (2007)

The heralds at the Bremen town hall are free sculptures of two armored knights on horseback. The slightly larger than life groups of figures, embossed in copper, flank the east portal of the Old Bremen Town Hall . They are traditionally referred to as " heralds ". Designed by Rudolf Maison and donated by the banker John Harjes, they were first installed at this location in 1901.

History of origin

The Munich sculptor Rudolf Maison, who had already designed the Teichmann fountain for Bremen, designed two riders for the Berlin Reichstag building in 1897 , which flanked the entrance to the German exhibition house in a smaller version at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900. The execution of the sculptures embossed in copper was made by G. Knodt in Frankfurt. The Bremen-born banker John Harjes, who lives there, saw them in Paris, bought them and gave them to his native city. In 1901 a location was found: the south-east portal of the Bremen town hall , where they were installed on September 30, 1901.

During the Second World War, the sculptures were placed in an air raid shelter. In 1959, the venerable portal was first avoided again by the historicist figures that were already obsolete at the time of their creation, and they were placed discreetly on the oak alley in the Egestorff Foundation's park . For many years, retrieval was not an option. But then, in 2003, an art campaign that played with “displacements” in the cityscape apparently temporarily moved the two riders to their old place. As a result, a donation campaign was launched on a private initiative with the aim of permanently restoring the old constellation. Preservation of monuments and politics could not or would not oppose this. When a clearing vehicle from the city cleaning service knocked over a figure on New Year's morning in 2005, an urgent need for restoration became apparent and when this had been met, on February 7, 2007, the pair of riders was finally set up again at the old place.

meaning

The attention to detail and the naturalistic execution of the figures contrasts somewhat with the inaccuracy with which the question of the meaning of the sculptures can only be answered. Individual elements of the armor correspond to the period around 1500. There are no concrete references to the history of Bremen . The old designation as “ heralds ” is also arbitrary. For us today they represent only one (artistically moderately significant) example of a nationally tinged look back into an idealized “medieval” past.
That this view was hardly contemporary for a sculptor around 1900 shows the simultaneity with the artistically unequal more significant free sculpture of the Rosselenker in the ramparts .

Two more figures by Maison were placed at the opposite, northwestern entrance of the town hall in 1904, but were melted down in 1942.

The Heralds have been a listed building since 1973.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Friedl:  Maison, Rudolph. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 15, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-428-00196-6 , p. 714 f. ( Digitized version ).
  2. ↑ Destroyed after 1945 (according to article Rudolf Maison )
  3. ↑ For Harjes s. Bremische Biographie 1912–1962 , Bremen 1969, p. 207 f.
  4. ^ Press release of the Senate 2007 , February 7, 2007.
  5. ↑ as put against each other by Mielsch, p. 34
  6. ^ Heinrich Wiegand Petzet: ... knight at the town hall of Bremen. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch , Vol. 55, 1977, pp. 305–326. ( Digitized version )
  7. ↑ Monument database of the LfD Bremen

literature

  • Beate Mielsch: Monuments, open sculptures, fountains in Bremen 1800–1945. Bremen 1980, p. 34 f., P. 51, fig. 57, 58.

Web links

Commons : Heralds at the Bremen Town Hall  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Coordinates: 53 ° 4 ′ 33.1 "  N , 8 ° 48 ′ 28.48"  E