View of Dresden with the Royal Gallery, the Church of Our Lady, Guardhouse and the Cloth Hall

The featured etching, which Heinecken and Le Blanc regard as the eighth print in the topical series of Views of Dresden, shows Neumarkt (New Market Square) in Dresden seen from a small square called Jüdenhof. The building on the left is the so-called Johanneum, the royal equerry originally accommodating stables, a carriage haouse and armoury, was later converted into the Royal Art Gallery. The Baroque Frauenkirche in the background was built in 1726-1743 to a design by Georg Bähr. A guardhouse shown on the left will suffer serious damage during the Seven Years War and will be eventually demolished in 1766. On the right, the Cloth Hall are partially visible. In the composition’s centre, in the foreground, there is King Augustus III’s splendid state coach drawn by six horses carrying the monarch, probably to admire the collection of paintings housed on the building’s second floor.

After: Bernardo Bellotto, Dresen: New Market Square from the Jüdenhof, ca. 1748/49, oil on canvas, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden (inv. no. Gal.–Nr. 610.)

keywords: Baroque  |  Bibliothek der Königliche Akademie der Künste, Berlin (institution)  |  Dresden (Germany)  |  Frauenkirche (Dresden)  |  Old Masters Gallery (Dresden)  |  German graphics  |  Italian graphics  |  church (architecture)  |  town  |  market square  |  German art  |  veduta  |  views of Germany