Marble colonnade

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The former marble colonnade.
Watercolor by Johann Friedrich Nagel, around 1792

The marble colonnade , also called the Rehgarten Colonnade after its former location , was a garden architecture designed as a water feature in the Rehgarten of the Sanssouci Park in Potsdam . It was built between 1751 and 1762 based on a design by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff and adorned the main avenue a few meters west of the still-preserved “Plögerchen Roundabout” south of the Orangery Palace , or the anniversary terrace below . Georg Franz Ebenhech , Johann Peter Benkert , Johann Gottlieb Heymüller and other artists were involved in the sculptural work. Already in need of repair in the 1780s, it was demolished in 1797 due to dilapidation and not rebuilt.

prehistory

When the first ornamental and kitchen garden areas were laid out at Sanssouci Palace around 1747/48, Friedrich II planned a park extension to the west. There was the pheasant and deer garden, separated from the pleasure garden by a high wall with five iron gates. In order to include this forest area more closely in the park, the planner Johann Hartmann Burghoff extended the main avenue running from east to west in a westerly direction between 1747 and 1751. The route, which is now almost two kilometers long, was bordered on the sides with low hedges in the Rehgarten and alternated with twelve marble groups by Italian artists and gilded sandstone figures by Johann Peter Benkert and Johann Gottlieb Heymüller. A grotto planned in 1750 should form the end in the west. The foundations were laid out in 1755, but due to the decision of Frederick II to build the New Palace at this point, they were not carried out any further. As the architectural highlight of the deer garden, the marble colonnade, designed as a water feature, based on the design of the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff , was built on a roundabout in the middle .

Marble colonnade

Shell in Neptune's grotto.
Sanssouci Park
Shell on the figure of Neptune.
Remise at Glienicke Palace
Shell on the south side of the casino.
Klein-Glienicke Park

Knobelsdorff used the circular colonnade in the palace gardens of Versailles and the colonnade on the Grand Trianon by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart as a model . The also circular marble colonnade in the Rehgarten, raised on two steps, was cut through by the main avenue and the passages emphasized by richly decorated archivolts . The gilded lead work on these portal arches showed snail-shaped horns of plenty, reeds, nymphs and river gods with dolphins and urns, mascarons , festoons and crowning vases on which foxes hunted poultry. The 32 monolithic columns in the inner circle and the pillars in the outer circle were clad with white and pink Kauffunger marble. The capitals of the columns were made of Italian Carrara marble . Likewise the cornices , consoles and the balustrades with entrelacs in the inner circle, which adorned gilded vases and children's figures made of lead. In the spaces between the columns and pillars, gilded groups of figures from Roman and Greek mythology stood on rock- like sandstone pedestals . Johann Peter Benkert, Johann Gottlieb Heymüller, Johann Melchior Kambly , Matthias Müller, Philipp Gottfried Jenner (1724–1773), the workshop of Gottfried Heyne, Carl Lieb and the stonemason Johann Christian Angermann († 1777) created this lead with the help and supervision of Ebenhech - and stone work through which water should partially pour into eight large marble shells.

With the beginning of the Seven Years' War in 1756, work on the buildings commissioned by the king in both Sanssouci Park and in the urban area progressed slowly or was temporarily stopped. As reported by Oberhofbaurat and gardening inspector Heinrich Ludwig Manger in his "Building History of Potsdam" in 1789, the marble colonnade mainly concerned [the] sculptures by marble and Bley, [...] partly because some sculptors died because of death, others because of emigration, and still others were unable to continue working due to lack of money, but also partly because the marble remained out for too long. In 1759 the royal buildings […] lay completely silent […] , so that the complete termination of this colonnade lasted almost until the king's return from the war mentioned, namely until 1762 .

However, once completed, it could not serve its purpose as a water feature. The water supply for the park buildings through the basin built on the Höneberg in 1748 failed despite lengthy and cost-intensive efforts to find a pump and distribution system on Friedrich himself, who preferred unsuitable personnel and the cheapest material and considered himself a specialist. Friedrich showed his appreciation for the colonnade in the Èloge für Knobelsdorff, which he had read out to members of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts and Mechanical Sciences on January 24, 1754 by adding them to his masterpieces.

35 years after its completion, the marble colonnade had to be demolished in 1797 because it was dilapidated. The columns with the Kauffunger marble were used in the colonnades of the side wings of the Marble Palace in the New Garden . The lead figures were melted down and the gold scraped off beforehand. In 1810 an auction of the remaining stocks took place. In addition to the marble columns, the large marble shells that found their place in the Neptune's grotto in the Sanssouci park, on the figure of Neptune in front of the coach house at Glienicke Palace and below the south-facing pergola of the casino in Klein-Glienicke Park , have been preserved. The representation of the entire structure can only be found today on the watercolor by Johann Friedrich Nagel and the copperplate engravings by Johann Friedrich Schleuen (1739–1784) and Janus Genelli .

Over four decades after the demolition, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. Began building a new colonnade in 1844. The architects Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse and Friedrich August Stüler made designs based on his sketches, but for unknown reasons they were not carried out.

literature

  • Foundation Prussian Palaces and Gardens Berlin-Brandenburg (Ed.): Nothing thrives without care. The Potsdam park landscape and its gardeners . Exhibition catalog, Potsdam 2001, p. 61
  • General management of the Foundation Palaces and Gardens Potsdam-Sanssouci (Ed.): Potsdam Palaces and Gardens. Construction and garden art from the 17th to the 20th century . Castles and Gardens Foundation and Potsdamer Verlagbuchhandlung , Potsdam 1993, ISBN 3-910196-14-4 , pp. 114f
  • Heinrich Ludwig Manger: Heinrich Ludewig Manger's building history of Potsdam, especially under the government of King Frederick the Second . 1. Vol. Friedrich Nicolai, Berlin / Stettin 1789
  • August Kopisch: The royal palaces and gardens at Potsdam . Ernst & Korn, Berlin 1854, p. 98ff

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ In the literature, the start of construction is dated differently: 1751, cf. Manger: Building History of Potsdam , 1789, p. 128; 1751 or 1752, cf. Georg Sello: Potsdam and Sans-Souci , 1888, p. 140. In more recent literature there is 1751, cf. SPSG: Buildings and sculptures in Park Sanssouci , 2002, p. 75 and others as well as 1751/52, cf. SPSG: Potsdam palaces and gardens. Construction and garden art from the 17th to the 20th century . 1993, p. 114 and others.
  2. ↑ There are eight parapet sculptures made of sandstone from the former “Plögerchen Gasthof” in the Schloßstraße, Potsdam. The figures were created by Johann Peter Benkert around 1754. The house, which was damaged in World War II, was demolished in 1959.
  3. ^ SPSG: Buildings and sculptures in Park Sanssouci . Potsdam 2002, p. 13. See Manger, 1789, p. 131.
  4. ↑ SPSG: Nothing thrives without care . 2001, p. 61.
  5. ↑ Manger, 1789, pp. 244f.
  6. ↑ Manger, 1789, p. 247.
  7. ↑ Manger, 1789, p. 129.
  8. ^ Friedrich Mielke : Potsdam architecture. Classic Potsdam . Propylaeen, Berlin 1981, ISBN 3-549-06648-1 , p. 67 f.
  9. ↑ Gustav Berthold Volz (ed.): The works of Frederick the Great. In German translation . Vol. 8. Reimar Hobbing , Berlin 1914, p. 225 ( digital edition of the Trier University Library, accessed on November 9, 2012).
  10. ^ SPSG: Buildings and sculptures in Park Sanssouci . 2002, p. 75.
  11. ^ Administration of the State Palaces and Gardens of Berlin: Glienicke Palace . Berlin 1987, p. 503.
  12. ^ Sepp-Gustav Gröschel: Glienicke and the ancient world . In: Administration of the State Palaces and Gardens Berlin: Glienicke Palace . Berlin 1987, p. 244.
  13. ^ SPSG: Potsdam palaces and gardens. 1993, p. 115.
  14. ↑ Saskia Hüneke: Rehgarten Colonnade . In: Andreas Kitschke: Ludwig Ferdinand Hesse (1795–1876). Court architect under three Prussian kings . Munich 2007, p. 324.

Coordinates: 52 ° 24 ′ 6.4 "  N , 13 ° 1 ′ 37.7"  E