Leseprobe

7 An initial brilliant appearance in the Grosser Garten Of course, all of these exquisite ancient works and contemporary sculptures demanded an adequate place of display. In 1727 there were plans – ultimately unrealized – to build an independent museum in proximity to the Zwinger; it would have been the first specially dedicated museum building in Europe. Augustus the Strong commissioned Zacharias Longuelune to design a central-plan building at whose core the ancient sculptures acquired in Rome would have been installed. In 1729, when these plans proved to be too expensive, the elector resolved to present the by now very substantial collection in the rooms of the Palais in the Grosser Garten. The first celebrated guest to be guided through the new arrange- ment was the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm I, who had been invited to attend Dresden’s carnival celebrations in February of 1730. In circa 1736/37, the English traveller Jeremiah Milles wrote a description of the 155 marble sculptures he saw lined up in the festival hall of the Palais. From it, we learn that the splendid collection was arranged according to the model of Baroque galleries in accordance with aesthetic, and in particular, symmetrical principles. This spatially lavish presentation in the Palais in the Grosser Garten was however modified just a few years later. In 1747, on the occasion of the double Palais in the Grosser Garten, view from the south east, 1937 Dresden, Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitäts- bibliothek Dresden, Abt. Deutsche Fotothek