Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
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Friedrichswerder Church
On display in the Friedrichswerder Church are sculptures from the early 19th century. Built between 1824 and 1830 after plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the Friedrichswerder Church, with all its works, is the most authentic building of its creator.
The collection
The reception of antique motif and form is an important feature of the sculptures from the late 18th to the mid-19th century which are on display here. They are grouped in the exhibition space in a way which is informal and rich in connections so that the observer is given an impression of something like a "landscaped serenity".
At the centre of the exhibition is the original plaster model for Johann Gottfried Schadow's marble sculpture of the Prussian princesses. The area of the Classical sculptural ideal is represented by Emil Wolff's "Badende" and Heinrich Kümmel's "Fischerknabe". Theodor Kalide's "Bacchantin auf dem Panther" - a war-damaged torso, the revolutionary modernity of which can be recognised even in this fragmentary form - already exceeds the boundaries of Classicism. Busts of significant personages from the Goethe period complement the sculpture exhibition: Immanuel Kant, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Wilhelm and Alexander von Humboldt and other characters from this significant period in German intellectual history are present.
In the gallery of the church, the Nationalgalerie (National Gallery) has put on display a documentary exhibition on the life and work of Karl Friedrich Schinkel. So, at the same time, the building receives recognition: with the Friedrichswerder Church Schinkel realised a central work of German neo-Gothic.
