Thursday 20 August 2015

Berlin Day 6

Today was my last day in Berlin, I started out early trying to beat the queues for the Museums, due to the crowds even at 9.20am when opening is not until 10am I was not as alert as perhaps I could have been and waited in line to the Alte Museum which is an art museum and not the Altes Museum of the Ancient World I was actually wanting to go to. So I walked through the art gallery of the Alte Museum.


The foyer was filled with beautiful marble statues this one of Ceres & Proserpina dated 1843.


Psyche 1806


Hebe 1796


Claude Monets In The Rowing Boat at Giverny circa 1887 really struck me.


Also the Hans Herrmann painting of Potsdamer Platz in 1894


Jakob Phillip Hackert’s painting of The Venus Temple in Baja 1799


I decided that I would then look to see what the queues for the Altes Museum of the Ancient World were like and I was pleased to see that I could get in without hours to wait in line. Built between 1823 and 1830 according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it is one of the foremost examples of classical architecture with a rotunda, dome and portico in 1830. It was thus the first public museum in Prussia. The permanent exhibition entitled “New Antiquity in the Old Museum" (collection of classical antiquities and gold treasury) presents Greek and Roman art and sculptures. The newly designed main floor of the building houses an exhibition of stone sculptures, clay and bronze figures, friezes, vases, gold jewellery and precious silverware from Greek antiquity. Roman art is represented by portraits of Caesar and Cleopatra, sarcophagi, mosaics, the Berlin Goddess, the praying boy, frescos and Roman-Egyptian mummy portraits.


These goddesses made of clay from 7th Century BC from Crete


The So Called Berlin Goddess ‘Bride of the God of the Underworld’ 580 – 5600BC


An enthroned Athena 500 – 480BC


In this bowl Selene descends into the oceanus with her chariot 490 BC


An earring of Nike 3 century BC


A marble statue of Aphrodite 420 – 400 BC


A bronze Artemis 470 – 460 BC


This vase shows the children of Leto – Artemis


Here a relief of Cybele 340 – 320 BC made of marble


Another marble relief this time of Cybele from 340 – 320 BC


Another vase showing a woman in procession made of clay from 440BC


Flasks for anointing oil made of alabaster from the 6th & 5th century BC


7th century BC jewellery



3rd – 2nd century Enthroned Goddess with 10 Swaddled Babies



Vesta statue 140 – 150 AD


Demeter


Fortuna


Nike


Hygieia


Hera


Artemis


The Altes Museum of the Ancient World


With its magnificent dome, the Berlin Cathedral built in the 19th century, the ruling family of Germany, the house of Hohenzollern, was living right next door in the Berlin Castle and they thought that Schinkel’s rather modest domed cathedral no longer corresponded to the image they wanted to project of their family. King Frederick William IV thus decided that a magnificent cathedral should be built.

The cornerstone of this beautiful cathedral was laid in 1894 and the inauguration ceremony took place in 1905. During World War II, the cathedral suffered heavy damage. Only in 1975 did the GDR begin restoring it. The restoration was finally completed four years after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1993.


I crossed the lovely river on my way to the tram to return to the hotel.


I then walked towards the tower which dominates the skyline in Berlin


And found this fountain in the park.


I now say goodbye to Berlin as tomorrow I fly to Switzerland.

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