Trip to Germany: Dresden (Days 6 and 7)

Dresden is also a place that I didn't really think to consider visiting, but I'm glad that Rachel recommended it. This is such a great city for art and Baroque architecture! Before going to Dresden, my main association with the city was that it was heavily bombed during WWII, which is the reason why Courbet's The Stone Breakers was destroyed and no longer exists (such a shame!). Upon arriving in Dresden I learned that the architecture underwent extensive restoration or was completely rebuilt after the bombing. So the city is a very unique combination of the old and the new: many things have an old appearance in style but they are relatively new. Rachel had been to Dresden before, and she recommended that we stay in a hotel that was located right in the heart of the old part of the city (the Altstadt).

This image was taken from the cupola of the Frauenkirche church in the old part of the city.

Our hotel is just at the lower right hand portion of this photograph

This is the Katholische Hofkirke, which was just a block away from our hotel. It is a really lovely structure and its too bad that it is covered with so much soot.

The Frauenkirche building was really interesting to me, because was completely rebuilt to be a copy of the original that stood before WWII. The structure has some of the old stones that were from the original church. I wrote more about this building on my art history blog.

The morning after we arrived in Dresden, Rachel and I went to go and visit the Grünes Gewölde (Green Vault) and the Neues Grünes Gewölde (New Green Vault) at the Reisdenzschloss. The Green Vault was the first public museum in Europe and today it houses one of the biggest collections of treasury in Europe (see this news article). Room after room is filled with luxurious decorative arts and jewels, largely from the time of August the Strong and his son August III. There were thousands of objects on display, and I liked seeing all of the lathe ivories, nautilus cups, mounted ostrich eggs, and mounted coconut cups. Visitors weren't allowed to take pictures in the Green Vault, but they were allowed to take pictures in the New Green Vault area.

This is the doorway to the Residenzschloss, which is the building that houses the Green Vault and the New Green Vault

It was fun for me to see this coconut goblet with depictions of Amerindians, since I have read about this goblet in articles but I hadn't seen a reproduction before - and I got to see the real thing! The label specifies "North American Indians," which is curious to me because other images like the Humboldt Cup are inspired by Eckhout's images in Dutch Brazil (i.e. South America). I'd love to do more research on this cup in the New Green Vault. It was made in Nuremberg shortly before 1656.

These delicate, intricately-detailed polyhedrons are made out of ivory! The two court turners, Wecker and Lobenigk, made these between 1581 and 1584.

I really adore the floral decoration on his perpetual calendar for Elector Johann Georg II of Saxony (presumably made in South Germany, dated 1657)

Owl with a matching case by Gottfried Döring, Dresden, shortly before 1713

The piece I loved the most in the New Green Vault was this marquetry panel, "Still Life with Flowers" (1654) by Dirck van Rijswijck. The panel is made of iridescent mother-of-pearl from different kinds of shells, which results in the subtle color variation between flowers. Apart from the beautiful colors, I love the little details like the parrot and the dragonfly.

In the afternoon, Rachel went to the hotel to rest and I went back to the the Residenzschloss to see the Historical Museum and the armory (Rüstkammer). I spent a lot of time looking at the historical clothing. One really curious piece of clothing was the "Landscape Garment of Elector Johann Georg I of Saxony" from 1611. The garment is filled with little circles that contain landscape scenes (see here and here).

My favorite dress was the parade dress (c. 1650) of Electress Magdalena Sibylla of Saxony

The next morning, before we checked out of our hotel, Rachel kindly agreed to go with me to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister before we left Dresden. The Gemäldegalerie is located in the Zwinger palace, and we took some time to look at the grounds before we went into the museum.

Baroque parterres at the Zwinger Palace! The parterres were filled with grass

Rachel and I at the Zwinger palace

When we got into the museum, I was disappointed that Vermeer's "Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window" was not on display (for conservation purposes), but there was still a lot to see. 

I don't remember seeing or studying Jan Van Eyck's "Winged Altar" (1437) in school, so it was fun to see this new painting (for me) by a beloved artist

Titian's "Portrait of a Lady in White" (c. 1561) has some really striking details in the fabrics - one can get a good sense of the different textures

Detail of Giorgione and Titan's "Sleeping Venus" (c. 1510). I thought of my blogger friend Frank when I saw this painting, since he loves Giorgione and Titian

This is Vermeer's "The Procuress" (1656). I have seen his painting before, but in person I was struck by how much I did not like it, because I usually love paintings by Vermeer. Sometimes I question the attribution of certain paintings to Vermeer (and rightly so, I think, since Vermeer's really gained his reputation posthumously and attributions have been shaky at times). The details seemed so muddied in contrast to other Vermeer paintings and some of the features (like the man's left hand in front of the woman) are very awkwardly rendered.

A group of students were learning about Raphael's Sistine Madonna (1512), so we weren't able to get too close or spend too much time in this gallery. This painting is probably best well known for the two little angels that are on the bottom of the picture plane.

Étienne Liotard's pastel "The Chocolate Girl" (c. 1744/45) - this is one of the popular images that appear in the Dresden tourist shops. It is really impressive to me that the transparent glass of water is made with pastels!