“Dresden's Schilling Museum (...)”.
Published by C.C. Meinhold & Soehne in Dresden during the year MDCCCLXXXIX (1889 - 1st edition).
Illustrated with 5 plates.
Softcover binding. Text in german.
24 pages, 21.5 x 14 cm.
Good condition in general (foxing, yellow/brown stains, merely worn cover, non-rigid cardboards, &c).
Shipment fees' values (via registered airmail) to all countries: $9.99. For additional information concerning the displayed item, do not hesitate to email me.
The Schilling Museum was a museum in the Pirnaische Vorstadt in Dresden, which existed until 1945 and was dedicated to the Saxon sculptor Johannes Schilling and showed casting models of his works.
The Schilling Museum was built in 1888 on the sculptor's own initiative on the property at Pillnitzer Straße 63. Schilling himself had decided to build it in order to house his numerous plaster models and present them to the public. The financing was provided with the help of an honorary gift from the German Emperor in the amount of 30,000 marks and a grant from the Saxon state in the same amount. In 1908, the museum became the property of the city of Dresden.
The building, in strict classicist style, was designed by Schilling's son Rudolf and executed by Hermann August Richter. The façade was clad in sandstone and was based on the stylistic forms typical of classical museums of the time. Organizationally, the Schilling Museum belonged to the Municipal Collections of Dresden. In 1945 the building was severely damaged during the air raids on Dresden and demolished in 1948.
Inside the museum there were several halls of different colours, with the architect Rudolf Schilling taking his cue from Gottfried Semper's idea, according to which the character of exhibition rooms should change depending on their form and purpose. The visitor first entered a vestibule painted in sea green, in which, in addition to smaller sculptures, a copy of the Niederwald monument designed by Johannes Schilling could be seen. The background design was by the painter Friedrich Preller. The focal point of the house was the "Germania Hall" with a cast model of the monumental Germania figure of this monument. The six-life-size sculpture, which is one of Schilling's major works, was set up against an orange background, which gave the room a festive setting. In the adjacent "Hall of the Memorial to the Fallen Warriors of Hamburg", on the other hand, the walls were dark purple. Here were the casting templates for the war memorial erected in Hamburg in 1875. Other rooms included Schilling's models of the Schiller Monument in Vienna, the Four Times of the Day on Brühl's Terrace in Dresden, the Panther Quadriga at the Semperoper and the Gottfried Semper Monument in Dresden. Numerous designs and smaller works by Johannes Schilling were also on display.
Johannes Schilling (23 June 1828 in Mittweida – 21 March 1910 in Klotzsche near Dresden) was a German sculptor. Johannes Schilling was the youngest of five children. A year after his birth, his family moved to Dresden, where he grew up. At the age of six, he was sent to a private school and, at fourteen, attended the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts where he was taught drawing by Karl Gottlieb Peschel. After graduating in 1845, he became one of the master pupils in the studio of sculptor Ernst Rietschel.[1] In 1851 and 1852, he went to Berlin to continue his studies with Christian Daniel Rauch and Friedrich Drake.
In 1852, he returned to Dresden, where he worked in the studios of Ernst Julius Hähnel. From 1854 to 1856, he took a study trip to Rome. Finally, in 1857, he established his own studio. That same year, he married Louise Arnold, daughter of the late publisher Ernst Sigismund Arnold (1792-1840). Among their children were Rudolf Schilling, an architect and co-owner of the construction firm Schilling & Graebner, and Katharina Susanna Schilling, who became the wife of chemist Arthur Hantzsch. The writer and historian Heinar Schilling was a child of his second marriage to Minna Neubert.
In 1868, he became a Professor at the Academy, a position he held until his death.[1] By 1888, he was sufficiently famous to establish a museum (designed by his son, Rudolf) to display his models and designs. It was destroyed in 1945, as was most of Dresden by the fire bombing of Dresden by the British/Americans. After his death, as a part of his legacy, the city of Mittweida was directed to build a private museum, but these plans had not been realized by 1914 and were put on hold at the outbreak of World War I. His legacy was not fulfilled until 2005, when the Schilling House was established.
Among Schilling's sculptures there are Emperor William's monument in Hamburg, the sculpture series The Four Times of Day (Schilling) [it], and the Maximilian monument in Piazza Venezia, Trieste. He also contributed to the Luther Monument of Worms.