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Zwinger Palace

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    • TravelerMostly Saxon Christmas Markets
      1
      2
      Day 11

      Zwinger: more porcelain

      December 6, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 43 °F

      Long time no update, the internet was so slow everywhere we went, and everything was giving me problems...

      So Zwinger inside, more porcelain, samples of the Meissen/Dresden produced sort. I took a lot of pictures, because some of the pieces were incredibly detailed. They're not going to make it up here, but I can always torture people with it if they're interested another time.Read more

    • TravelerMostly Saxon Christmas Markets
      2
      Day 11

      Zwinger: the Old Masters' Gallery

      December 6, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 43 °F

      Paintings! A lot of them. They had a special exhibit of religious art, featuring Theotokos (see, my Orthodox past is reasserting itself here). There were a handful of paintings by Rembrandt, Brueghel, Rubens, a couple of familiar Italian sounding names...

      The big draw though, is Raphael's Sistine Madonna, which a lot of people know from the two little angels on the bottom rolling their eyes. (I'm really resisting making a turtle joke here, and almost succeeded) They show up on a lot of stuff: cards, tote bags, you name it. There was also a nice Boticelli Madonna in the special exhibit. And an altar piece by Cranach the Elder, mixing the central painting.

      A lot of the photos are kind of wonky, so apologies. My wrist hurt and the camera is heavy.      Read more

    • TravelerEpic Europe
      Day 16

      Dresden Day 3 Old Masters

      September 26, 2023 in Germany ⋅ 🌙 15 °C

      Today we started the day at the Zwinger art gallery of the Old Masters. We were there for 4 hours and could have been even longer if not for the organ recital that we had planned to go at 3pm. It was just a free 15 minute church pipe organ recital, and the beautiful sounds lulled Ruby and I to a restful nap.
      The gallery was well laid out in sequences of periods of painters with an audio guide. Despite the 4 hours there, we had to still rush through the Flemish and Dutch Masters.

      Included in our ticket was the visit to the porcelain and mathematics galleries. King Augustus the Strong was a great collector, he loved art, porcelain and clocks, globes, instruments and machines. We came back to the porcelain and mathematics galleries after the organ recital. The porcelain collection was interesting but the clocks and time pieces were truly beautiful.

      The day was finished with a meal at Schmidt's, a Michelin star restaurant deep in the suburbs of Dresden, a half hour tram ride away. The food was divine, exquisite and most of all filling. As we had to do laundry, we were already late for our reservation when we got off the tram. We still had a 950m walk to the restaurant. We weren't sure if where Google was taking us so we asked a lady standing at the front of her house saying goodbye to someone. She seemed so helpful and welcomed us straight away into her home. This we thought to mean a short cut out the back of her house. Instead, she enthusiastically beckoned us to come in to see her Chinese antiques, which we gleaned was a collection that her father left her. Then we got the story of how her father went to China and became a professor of music there during GDR, whilst China was under Mao, and Dresden was part of East Germany. She then proceeded to take us down her street with her front door still slightly ajar, to show us the directions to Schmidt's. On the way she wanted us to see her "drawing" gallery and gestured pointing to her watch. We said sorry, but we were late for our reservation already pointing back to our watches. It was really opportune meeting her because she lead us to a short cut. We were almost half an hour late, but it table was still waiting for us. We call people like her our travel angels.

      Total distance walked 10.2km.      Read more

    • TravelerMostly Saxon Christmas Markets
      Day 8

      The Zwinger

      December 3, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 43 °F

      The Zwinger Palace is the other structure so strongly identified with Dresden. On the outskirts of the old city, it was built as an orangerie and festival garden, in 1710. What there is of it today was meant to be the forecourt of a new castle Augustus the Strong was having built, that would stretch down to the Elbe River. It wasn't completed in his lifetime, and those plans would never come to fruition.

      It was destroyed in the firebombings along with the rest of Dresden. The Soviet military administration began the reconstruction as early as 1945, and by 1963 it had been almost completely restored.

      Today, the gardens and walkways are open for public enjoyment. Or would be, if they weren't under construction and completely ripped up. It also houses the Old Masters' Picture Gallery, the Dresden Porcelain Collection, and the Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments. Today, we only walked around the outside. It's a very rich environment, a lot going on visually.

      In general, Dresden is like that and it can be very overwhelming.      Read more

    • TravelerMostly Saxon Christmas Markets
      Day 11

      Zwinger: inside

      December 6, 2024 in Germany ⋅ 🌧 41 °F

      We were going to head to Meissen today to look at the porcelain collection, but after running around for two days, and having two more days of running planned, we decided to just stay in Dresden and look at the collection in the Zwinger.

      So now a few (okay a lot) of words on porcelain and the Wettin family's involvement with it...

      Once upon a time, Europeans, especially the really rich ones, really loved Chinese dishes and glassware. There was a problem though. China was far away, long distance trade by sea was fraught with dangers (weather, pirates, war, sea monsters), and the Chinese knew they had a hot commodity and really jacked up the prices.

      In steps Augustus the Strong (remember him-- built the Zwinger, the Dresden Cathedral, was Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, Duke of Lithuania and et cetera). He really, really liked Chinese dishes and glassware. So much so, that he decided, or so the story goes, he was going to discover the secret of it, and make it himself. Well, not he, himself. He was going to make other people do all of that.

      Johann Freidrich Böttger, an alchemist, is credited with the win here, following up on the work of Ehrenfried Walther von Tschirnhaus. Again, the story goes Augustus initially tapped Böttger to make gold. Augustus kept him in “protective custody” in the Albrechtsburg until he got the job done. In the course of this, he worked with Tschirnhaus, who had had some success in his research, mainly discovering the secret ingredient of porcelain, but was unable to make a finished product. After Tschirnhaus's death, Böttger took over, and within a week, claimed to have made porcelain.

      Augustus was happy. He was happier when the product was refined and he got actual porcelain out of it. In 1709, he established the first European porcelain manufacturing concern: the Royal-Polish and Electoral-Saxon Porcelain Manufactory. It sounds better than Augustus' Dish-works. There's a lot of information available on how things developed, including the origin of the trademark Meissen Blue glaze. I like porcelain, but not enough to go into it. (THANK GOD, everyone out there is saying, I know).

      In an act of industrial espionage, the head craftsmen at Meissen sold the secret recipe in 1717, and from there, it spread throughout Europe. To protect its brand, the manufactory at Meissen began marking their products, first with an AR (for Augustus Rex) then various initials for the company, before finally settling on the crossed swords from the arms of Saxony that are still in use today.

      I didn't turn over any of the Saxon-produced pieces to check for the trademark, by the way, but I thought about it.

      Get ready... here comes the dishes. First, the Chinese and Japanese collection      Read more

    • Dresden
      Day 2

      Dresden Zwinger

      April 28, 2024 in Germany ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

      Nach dem Frühstück ging es wieder in die Altstadt. Erst in den Zwinger und dann durch die Altstadt vorbei an den vielen alten Gebäuden. Ach natürlich durfte die Elbpromenade nicht fehlen. Dann haben wir dem botanischen Garten noch einen Besuch abgestattet. Am Abend haben wir lecker indisch gegessen.Read more

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    • Road96RunnerDresden 2017
      Day 2

      Zwinger

      August 5, 2017 in Germany ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

      Der Zwinger ist ein Gebäudekomplex mit Gartenanlagen in Dresden. Das unter der Leitung des Architekten Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann und des Bildhauers Balthasar Permoser errichtete Gesamtkunstwerkaus Architektur, Plastik und Malerei gehört zu den bedeutenden Bauwerken des Barocks und ist neben der Frauenkirche das bekannteste Baudenkmal Dresdens. Sein Name Zwinger geht auf die im Mittelalter übliche Bezeichnung für einen Festungsteil zwischen der äußeren und inneren Festungsmauer zurück, obschon der Zwinger bereits bei Baubeginn keine dem Namen entsprechende Funktion mehr erfüllte.

      Der Zwinger entstand ab 1709 als Orangerie und Garten sowie als repräsentatives Festareal. Seine reich verzierten Pavillons und die von Balustraden, Figuren und Vasen gesäumten Galerien zeugen von der Prachtentfaltung während der Regentschaft des Kurfürsten Friedrich August I. (auch „August der Starke“ genannt) und seines dadurch ausgedrückten Machtanspruchs. In der ursprünglichen Konzeption des Kurfürsten war der Zwinger als Vorhof eines neuen Schlosses vorgesehen, das den Platz bis zur Elbe einnehmen sollte; daher blieb der Zwinger zur Elbseite hin zunächst unbebaut (provisorisch mit einer Mauer abgeschlossen). Die Planungen zu einem Schlossneubau wurden nach dessen Tod aufgegeben und mit der Abkehr vom Barock verlor der Zwinger zunächst an Bedeutung. Erst über ein Jahrhundert später schloss ihn der Architekt Gottfried Semper mit der Sempergalerie zur Elbe hin ab.

      Die 1855 eröffnete Sempergalerie war eines der wichtigsten deutschen Museumsprojekte des 19. Jahrhunderts und ermöglichte die Ausweitung der seit dem 18. Jahrhundert unter den jeweiligen Zeiteinflüssen gewachsenen Nutzung des Zwingers als Museumskomplex. Die Luftangriffe auf Dresden am 13. und 14. Februar 1945 trafen den Zwinger schwer und führten zu umfangreichen Zerstörungen. Seit dem Wiederaufbau in den 1950er und 1960er Jahren beherbergt der Zwinger die Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, den Mathematisch-Physikalischen Salon und die Porzellansammlung. Die ursprüngliche Zweckbestimmung als Orangerie, Garten sowie als repräsentatives Festareal ist dabei zwar in den Hintergrund getreten; letztere wird mit der Aufführung von Musik- und Theaterveranstaltungen jedoch weiterhin gepflegt.      Read more

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    • TravelerElbsandsteingebirge 2020

      Tag 11 Dresden

      August 4, 2020 in Germany ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

      Da Gohrisch heute genau an der Wettergrenze zu liegen scheint und es hier heute viel regnen soll, haben wir uns entschieden, mit der Bahn nach Dresden zu fahren, die DB macht diese Entscheidung aber auch einfach, da es hier einen Großraumtarif gibt, der es einen ermöglicht, den ganzen Tag mit einem Familientiket für 21,50€ durch die Gegend zu fahren.
      Diese Entscheidung hat sich in vielerlei Hinsicht gelohnt, einerseits war das Wetter zwar nicht sonnig, aber immerhin trocken und andererseits, dafür das in Deutschland fast überall Sommerferien sind, war da echt nichts los, man konnte sogar teilweise Bilder machen, ohne das da andere Personen drauf sind; einfach genial.
      Was natürlich echt Sch...e ist, es ist kaum möglich, Bilder ohne Bauzaun, Krane oder Gerüste zu machen, die bauen wirklich an allen Ecken und Enden rum.
      Wir haben es uns dieses Mal gespart, irgendwo rein zu gehen, weil wir das alles schon gesehen haben, angefangen von Semperoper, Zwinger bis hin zur Frauenkirche.
      Dafür haben wir mal ausgiebig bei Globetrotter gestöbert (riesiger Laden), mal richtig gut beraten lassen, was für mich die richtigen Wanderschuhe sind und ob es gute Regenjacken gibt, die auch noch bezahlbar sind (wird aber echt schwierig😳).
      Und zu guter Letzt haben wir uns noch mit einem Spagettieis belohnt, was etwas komisch war, denn der Ober uns bei der Bestellung sagte, dass das Vanilleeis ausverkauft ist🥴, sagte uns aber, das wir das auch mit einem anderen Eis bekommen könnten, wir haben uns dann für Jughurt entschieden, was eine sehr leckere Entscheidung war.      Read more

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