21.03.2014
Bode-Museum
On 19 March, members of the press were shown around the conservation studio at the Bode-Museum. Andreas Schlüter's stone bust of Mars was undergoing restoration treatment, in preparation for the 'SCHLOSS BAU MEISTER' show.
Andreas Schlüter designed and built a garden villa for the Prussian minister of state, Ernst Bogislav von Kameke. It was completed in 1712 in Kameke's private garden in Berlin's Dorotheenstadt area (in what is now Mitte). Largely destroyed during WWII, all that remained were the garden facade and the structure's outer walls. It was demolished in 1950.
Four of the figures that once adorned the roof of the central part of the building have been on show at the Bode-Museum since 1950 (in the Kameke-Halle). Other sculptural remains from the villa were merged into the collection of the Märkisches Museum (now Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin). Eight, larger-than-life-size figures originally crowned the raised avant-corps (the part that jutted out from the main building). The mythological scheme featured Mars and Victoria, Apollo and Daphne, and Neptune and Amphitrite (facing the street), with Flora and Bacchus overlooking the garden.
