View of Dresden: Neustadt with the Hauptstrasse and Neumarkt, the Old Town Hall and Equestrian Statue of Augustus II

Dresden’s Neustadt (New Town) was founded by Augustus II the Strong on the right bank of the Elbe after the great fire of 1685. In contrast to the other prints from the Views of Dresden series, the vista is not dominated by architecture. The gilded equestrian statue of Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland – also known as the Golden Rider – placed in the middle of New Town Market Square (Neustadter Markt) is its ideological and compositional centre. Executed in 1732-1734, one of the city’s principal landmarks was the work of Ludwig Wiedemann after the conception of Jean Joseph Vinache. Dressed as a Roman emperor, the monarch looks towards the East: this has been interpreted as an allusion to his rule as King of Poland (1697-1706 and 1709-1733). Bellotto’s print documents the effects of the remodelling of the old Town Hall completed in 1707. The square’s perspective closes with the Black Gate from 1632 shown in a distance. Typically of the prints from the Views of Dresden series, the composition includes scenes from everyday life. There is a two-horse carriage in the foreground, men engaged in conversation, children playing under the watchful gaze of the nanny, and street vendors. A woman is drawing water from a municipal well: with great precision and attention to details, Bellotto documents the city’s infrastructure ca. mid-eighteenth century, even such humble but essential amenities as municipal wells. On the left, there is a building in the process of demolition: a new town hall would be built on the site in 1750-1754.

According to Le Blanc, this is the fifteenth plate of the Views of Dresden series.

State I/III

keywords: Bibliothek der Königliche Akademie der Künste, Berlin (institution)  |  Dresden (Germany)  |  German graphics  |  Italian graphics  |  town  |  monument  |  town hall (architecture)  |  German art  |  veduta  |  views of Germany