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A PAIR OF GERMAN NEOCLASSIC GILTWOOD AND BRONZE TORCHERES Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, ci...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:25,000.00 - 35,000.00 USD
A PAIR OF GERMAN NEOCLASSIC GILTWOOD AND BRONZE TORCHERES Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, ci...
A PAIR OF GERMAN NEOCLASSIC GILTWOOD AND BRONZE TORCHERES Designed by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, circa 1815 The eight scrolling candle arms centered by an anthemion boss supporting a central candle arm with acanthus leaf decoration and each supporting turned tapered trumpet shaped candle holders with scalloped bobeche, the spirally turned, fluted and tapered stems with water leaf collars, on turned molded bases decorated with anthemions and beading, on lion paw feet 73 x 311/2 in. 185.5 x 80 cm - $25,000-35,000 Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781- 1841) Schinkel was the greatest architect in 19th century Germany, and his most important surviving buildings in Berlin and Potsdam show his sense of German idealism and technical mastery. He became Geheimer Oberlandesbaudirektor of the Prussian state and influenced many architects in Germany and abroad. The post-World War II destruction of the royal palace with Schinkel's apartments (1824) for the Crown Prince (later Frederick William IV), as well as the demolition of the palaces in the Wilhelmstrasse rebuilt in 1816 for Prince Augustus (1779-1843), in 1827-28 for Prince Charles (1807-83) and in 1829-33 for Prince Albert (1809-72) has deprived us of Schinkel's grandest interiors. Fortunately the country retreats that he designed for members of the royal family, most of which are in the area of Potsdam, have survived in something like their original setting. Each of these summer houses has a particular character reflecting the personality of the owner. The Neue Pavillon (1824) in the park of Schloss Charlottenburg was based on a Neapolitan seaside villa where Frederick William III had so happily resided during a visit in 1822. For Albert's wife, Marianne of Orange Nassau, Princess of Prussia (1810-83), Schinkel designed an immense and spectacularly sited castle for her estate at Kamenz in Silesia (1838-65). For the Crown Prince, Schinkel transformed an old estate south of the deer park at Sanssouci, Potsdam, known as Charlottenhof, into a classical villa (1826), adding the Italianate Hofgärtnerei (1829-33). In 1824 he had begun work for Prince Charles at Klein Glienicke to the north-west of Potsdam and on the opposite bank of the Havel River, where with the collaboration of his favorite student, Ludwig Persius, and the landscape architect Peter Joseph Lenné, he reproduced the landscape of Europe in miniature. the present torcheres most closely relate to a giltwood pair each with five similar scrolled branches seen before a pier mirror in an 1816 watercolor attributed to william berger of the red or stateroom in the palais of the prince august (Michael snodin, ed, karl friedrich schinkel: a universal man. new haven/london, 1991, no. 38, p. 116, ill.).