View of Dresden – Neustadt (New Town) and Japanese Palace

Bernardo Bellotto spent twenty years at the court of Augustus III (1696-1763) in Dresden, from 1746/47 to 1766. He was appointed court painter in 1748. Commissioned by the king, in 1747-1753, he painted the series of seventeen vedute of Dresden and then another series of sixteen paintings showing the nearby town of Pirna and fortress of Königstein. He then reproduced most of the paintings in superb etchings: he himself made the plates and did the printing in his studio in Salzgasse. In Catalogo de danni..., inventoring the losses he had incurred during the siege and bombardment of Dresden by the Prussian army in 1760, the artist regards the loss of some 2040 prints as the most disastrous. In the same document, he mentions many plates having suffered as well, damaged to an extent that made them unsuitable for printing: this was also the fate of the plates from the two above mentioned series. The loss of his atelier was the likely reason Bellotto limited his activity as a graphic artist and printmaker. It also foiled his plans to have his family profit from new editions of prints after his eventual death.

The Views of Dresden series comprised fourteen vedutes. A portion of the print runs was distributed by the royal court of Augustus III, in various combinations of prints, as diplomatic gifts, presented in Dresden or sent abroad. The etchings hailed the royal splendor and power, showcased the monarch’s artistic interests and connoisseurship, and spread the fame of Dresden as a flourishing art centre. Bellotto also distributed some portion of the runs, from his studio in Salzgasse and through the well-connected Amsterdam dealer Pierre Fouquet the Younger.

The featured etching (state IV) is signed by Bellotto as court painter to Augustus III, so it must have been printed after 1748, the year of his appointment. In the foreground, the artist depicted scenes from the city’s everyday life against the backdrop of the relics of the fortifications on the Elbe’s right bank. To the left, in a distance, looms the Holländische Palais (Dutch Palace), owing its name to its first tenant, Dutch ambassador Van Craneberg. During the remodeling of the residence carried from 1727 under Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann, Zacharias Longuelun and Jean de Bodt, the palace’s roofs were rebuilt in the style resembling Japanese pagodas giving the palace its new (and present) name: Japanisches Palais, although the original plans for housing there the royal collection of Japanese porcelain and decorative arts never materialized. The building was destroyed during World War II and rebuilt in 1951-1987. On the right, behind the walls, the Zwinger is partially visible and next to it the Late Baroque Hofkirche (Catholic Church of the Royal Court of Saxony) commissioned by Augustus III and built by Gaetano Chiaveri in 1739-1751.

After: Bernardo Bellotto, Dresden from the Left Bank of the Elbe, below the Fortifications, 1748, oil on canvas, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, Gal. Nr. 607.

keywords: Baroque  |  Bibliothek der Königliche Akademie der Künste, Berlin (institution)  |  Dresden (Germany)  |  German graphics  |  Italian graphics  |  Court Church / Hofkirche / Dresden Cathedral (Dresden)  |  town  |  palace (architecture)  |  Japanese Palace (Dresden)  |  panorama of the town  |  German art  |  veduta  |  views of Germany  |  Zwinger (Dresden)