Horse tamer (Berlin)

Horse tamer in front of Portal IV of the Berlin Palace

The horse tamers are two bronze sculptures by the Baltic German sculptor Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg . They had stood in front of Portal IV of the Berlin Palace since 1846 , where they corresponded with the horse sculptures at the Altes Museum . In 1945 the horse tamers were transferred to Kleistpark .

Berlin Palace and Lustgarten terrace around 1900, in the background on the left the horse tamers

History and description

The pleasure garden terrace was completed in front of the north facade of the Berlin Palace in 1846 . It consisted of a larger western part with the eagle column and a smaller eastern part with the horse tamers. The approximately four-meter-high bronze sculptures are replicas of two of the four horse-tamers that the Baltic German sculptor Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg created for the Anitschkow Bridge in Saint Petersburg , and were a gift from the Russian Tsar Nicholas I to the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV . He had them set up in front of Portal IV of the palace, where they corresponded with the horse sculptures Kastor and Pollux by Christian Friedrich Tieck as well as lion fighters and amazon by Albert Wolff on or in front of the Altes Museum . Alexander von Humboldt and Christian Daniel Rauch were enthusiastic about the artistic effect of the horse tamers at the original location. The last master builder of the palace, Albert Geyer, wrote: "The magnificent works of art, well fitting in scale, adorn the palace terrace and thus the palace". After the bronze sculptures survived World War II without damage, they were moved to Kleistpark in 1945 , where the garden architect Georg Pniower described them as "too small and only a makeshift".

In connection with the reconstruction of the Berlin Palace as a Humboldt Forum , a return of the horse tamers is being discussed. According to a representative survey by Infratest dimap, 44% of Germans and 51% of Berliners, the head of the Friends of Berlin Palace Wilhelm von Boddien , the former head of the Berlin Palace Foundation Manfred Rettig, the deputy state curator a. D. Klaus von Krosigk and the CDU Berlin .

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  Horse tamer on a painting by Wilhelm Brücke , 1852

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  Speech by Otto Wels to the horse tamers, 1932

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  Side view of the horse tamers, 1933

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  Horse tamer 1 in Kleistpark

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  Horse tamer 2 in Kleistpark

More horse tamers

In addition to the horse tamers described here, Peter Clodt von Jürgensburg created two more for the Royal Palace in Naples , four for the Anitschkow Bridge in Saint Petersburg and two for the Kusminki Riding Hall in Moscow .

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  Horse tamer in front of the Royal Palace in Naples

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  Horse tamer on the Anichkov Bridge in Saint Petersburg

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  Horse tamer 1 in Saint Petersburg

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  Horse tamer 2 in Saint Petersburg

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  Horse tamer in front of the Kuzminki riding school in Moscow

See also

• Eagle column (Berlin)
• Orange princes (Berlin)

literature

• Albert Geyer: The history of the palace in Berlin (1443-1918). Nicolai Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-89479-628-0 .

Web links

Commons : Rossebändiger (Berlin)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• The horse tamers (PDF; 4.2 MB), Gesellschaft Berliner Schloss eV

Individual evidence

1. ↑ On the dispute about the return of the sculptures to the palace area: Alexander von Humboldt would be thrilled! In: Berlin Palace. September 15, 2016, accessed November 16, 2019 . 
2. ^ Albert Geyer: The history of the palace in Berlin (1443-1918). Nicolai Verlag, Berlin 2010, ISBN 978-3-89479-628-0 , pp. 75 .
3. ^ Georg Pniower: Around the Kleistpark . In: garden and landscape . tape 60 , no. 5 , 1950, pp. 12 .
4. ↑ Hildburg Bruns: Survey: Half of Berliners are against the unified monument. In: BZ online, May 28, 2017, accessed on February 25, 2018.
5. ↑ Manuela Blisse: Five princes, two horse tamers and a fountain. In: Welt online, June 8, 2015, accessed February 25, 2018.
6. ↑ https://www.ghb-online.de/13-static-content/allgemein/271-wie-viel-moderne-brauchen-wir-vor-dem-schloss.html
7. ^ Strong Berlin - The government program of the CDU Berlin 2016–2021. P. 45