View of the Place de la Grande Garde in Dresden

The print represents Dresden’s busy Place de la Grande Garde, today’s Neumarkt (New Market Square), viewed from Moritzstraße. Like in other prints from the Views of Dresden series, the monumental architecture of Saxony’s capital provides a monumental and somewhat theatrical backdrop for scenes from everyday life. In the foreground, on the right, there are stalls selling various goods: wicker baskets, lengths of cloth, clay pots, etc. On the left, a crowd of onlookers watches an itinerant troop of artists, entertained by a clown performing to musical accompaniment. An elegant couple and a nanny with a little girl in her charge are walking along the Cloth Hall, shown in the middle ground on the left, with a sundial installed on the building’s façade. The square is also busy with traffic of stately carriages, elegant coaches and utilitarian carts. On the right rises the Baroque dome of the Frauenkirche (St Mary’s Church), built in 1726-1743 to a design by Georg Bähr. A guardhouse shown in front of the church will suffer serious damage during the Seven Years War and will eventually be demolished in 1766. Close to the composition’s right edge, two townhouses in Pirnaischen Gasse are partially visible and in front of them one of the oldest fountains in the city. Originally, it was installed in the square’s different section and was surmounted by the figure of Eirene, goddess of peace: hence its first name – the Fountain of Peace. After the Battle of Vienna in 1683, in which Saxon troops were engaged as part of the victorious allied forces prevailing over the Turkish army threatening Europe, the figure was replaced with the statue of Victory (interpreted by some as the Roman goddess of war Bellona). From then on, it became known as the Fountain of Victory or Turkish Fountain.

keywords: Baroque  |  Dresden (Germany)  |  fountain  |  Frauenkirche (Dresden)  |  German graphics  |  graphic reproductions  |  Italian graphics  |  town  |  market square  |  German art  |  veduta  |  views of Germany