View of Dresden with the Augustus Bridge over the Elbe River and the Hofkirche

Connecting Dresden’s Old and New Town, the Augustusbrücke is one of the city’s oldest bridges over the Elbe. It owes its name to the remodelling under Augustus II the Strong that gave it the form documented in the featured print. On the Elbe’s right bank rises the façade of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (Hofkirche) viewed from New Town. In contrast to Bellotto’s painting from 1751/1753 in the collection of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden (Gal. Nr. 630), the prints and the painting in the National Gallery of Ireland (inv. no. 182) show the church’s tower without the scaffoldings that were there at the time. Behind the cathedral, the Zwinger is partially visible and in a distance the tower of the Kreuzkirche. One of two etchings made by Bellotto in 1765, after his return from Vienna, it shows the Kreuzkirche in ruins, destroyed by shelling by the Prussian artillery in 1760. Together, the two etchings document the church’s appearance before its destruction and before the reconstruction that started in 1764. Behind the bridge, in a distance, stretch the riverfront galleries and terraces adjoining the palace of Count von Brühl and looms the Baroque Frauenkirche.

Like in other prints from the Views of Dreden series, the foreground is enlivened by scenes from everyday life: townspeople enjoying themselves on the riverbank and raftsmen transporting timber unloaded on the shore. The same groups of figures also appear – in various configurations – in the veduta’s painted versions. The Hofkirche and Augustusbrücke provide the composition’s dominant accents, the monumentality of architecture enlivened by the oblique alignment of the arcaded stone bridge. Worthy of note is Bellotto’s masterful rendering of the bridge’s reflection in the river and enhancing the illusion of depth by varying the intensity of line.

keywords: Baroque  |  Dresden (Germany)  |  German graphics  |  Italian graphics  |  Court Church / Hofkirche / Dresden Cathedral (Dresden)  |  Elbe (river)  |  town  |  Augustus Bridge (Dresden)  |  panorama of the town  |  German art  |  veduta  |  views of Germany