J. G. Schadow (1764-1850) = design and small plaster model / Johann Christoph (1748-1799) and Michael Christoph Wohler (1754-1802) = original large oak model) / Emanuel Ernst Jury (1756-1823) = copper engraving, horse’s head of the Quadriga of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, 1789-1792, copper, 125 x 45 x 157 cm, inv. no. VII 76/211 y
© Stadtmuseum Berlin | Photo: Dorin Alexandru Ionita

The horse’s head on the Quadriga

This horse’s head is all that remains of the original Quadriga, the sculpture that sits atop the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. But why did sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850) design the Quadriga in the first place? And what role did Napoleon play in it?

by Dr Claudia Czok

The majestic Quadriga on the Brandenburg Gate, as well as its creator Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850), both lived through a turbulent and crisis-ridden era known as the Sattelzeit1. Though defined by events such as the French Revolution of 1789 and the European coalition wars of 1799 to 1813, it was also a period of increased social mobility, exemplified by Schadow, a master tailor’s son, who was appointed head of the court sculptor’s workshop in Berlin in 1788. As rector, Schadow taught at the Academy of Arts and became academy director in 1816. He was also responsible for the sculptural decoration of the royal residences. In this capacity, he worked closely with sculptors in Berlin and Potsdam, designing more than 350 sculptural works, including reliefs, statues, busts and tombs.

Schadow’s approximately 2,200 drawings and large body of written work illustrate how the artist applied contemporary art theory to his work. He created new, sensual and universal works of art informed by wide-ranging sources and cultural traditions. Schadow’s academic approach to making art prioritised the study of details over the study of the whole. In addition to “antique plaster casts”, it was “beautiful nature itself”2 that served as the model for his works of art, which strived for idealistic beauty while still hewing closely to reality. In his early studies of animals, Schadow took his forms from “casts, paintings and engravings”; in his later work, horses, bulls and dogs had to be drawn “from nature itself”3.
J. G. Schadow (1764-1850), Self-portrait, 1802, black, red and brown chalk, brushstrokes in grey, brown and white, washed, wiped, heightened with white on whitish laid paper, 23.3 x 18.3 cm, inv. no. GHZ 89/2,1
© Stadtmuseum Berlin

The Brandenburg Gate

While the idea of building a prestigious city gate4 was linked to the military alliance concluded between Great Britain and Prussia in June 1788, it was above all the impetus of King Frederick William II, who wished to erect a monument to his successful military intervention in the Netherlands in 1787. The Brandenburg Gate was meant to convey openness, allow for transparency in the landscape and connect the “beautiful parts of the city”5 with Berlin’s Tiergarten. Head court architect (Oberhofbauamt) Carl Gotthard Langhans (1731-1808) oversaw the speedy construction of the sandstone gate, which was opened to the public in August 1791.

Daniel Berger (1744-1824), The Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, 1798, aquatint etching, 60.8 x 81.8 cm, inv. no. GDR 64/104
© Stadtmuseum Berlin
The only thing still missing was the Quadriga, for which Schadow presented an overall model in April 1789, showing “the true form of a group of 4 horses and a carriage together with the Goddess Victoria”6.

His roughly “hand-sized”7 Quadriga model and three 81-cm-tall plaster horse models are known to have existed but have not survived. In order for the artist to better study horses in motion, one of the officials in the royal stables was instructed to ride in the manner of the model8. There are several drawings of horses by Schadow, as well as sketches of ideas that may have served as models for the wood and metal sculptures. Sculptors Johann Christoph (1748-1799) and Michael Christoph Wohler (1754-1802) of Potsdam had been working on the original-sized wooden horses since May 1789. In mid-July 1789, coppersmith Emanuel Ernst Jury (1756-1823) of Potsdam began the copper engraving work based on the wooden models.

As he was working to full capacity on the four copper horses, Jury handed over production of the Victoria to the master tinsmith Köhler of Potsdam in mid-September 1791. Schadow, meanwhile, took part in an academy commission that assessed the qualitative progress of the woodwork and metalwork9. Two of Schadow’s design sketches for the Goddess Victoria from 1792 connected with this assessment have been lost. After four years, in mid-1793, the parts were brought to Berlin by barge and installed on the gate by the end of June, with final work continuing through September10. The king was delighted with “the extraordinarily well-made Quadriga”11.

Napoleon’s Quadriga

Schadow had felt a “shudder” upon Napoleon I’s (1769-1821) march into Berlin, “as if beholding a sinister being”12. He frequently met with Napoleon’s art agent, the artist Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747-1825), and arranged art purchases for him; however, neither their good relationship nor a petition from the artists of Berlin could prevent Napoleon from ordering the Quadriga to be brought to Paris immediately after his troops entered Berlin at the end of October 180613.

Friedrich Jügel (1772-1833) after Ludwig Wolf (1736-1832), The Entry of Napoleon into Berlin on 27 October 1806, 1806, coloured etching, image 44.8 x 59.4 cm, sheet 53 x 65 cm, inv. no. VII 95/52 w
© Stadtmuseum Berlin

The coppersmith Jury organised the removal and dismantling of the sculpture by mid-December, and procured crates with packing materials, for which he received 1500 thalers14. The art transport travelled by barge via Hamburg to Paris at the end of December and arrived there in mid-May 1807. Art historian Bénédicte Savoy (born 1972) has related the confiscation of artworks in Germany to a statement by Schadow’s friend, Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758-1832), who in 1807 wrote that…15

Carl Friedrich Zelter (1758–1832)
…“good things belong to the world, wherever they are […] Our artists, who only moan because their own works have not been seized […] are well punished for having neglected Albrecht Durer and Lucas Cranach” .

This was not the case for Schadow. His Quadriga was assessed in detail in Paris, extensively restored by the sculptor Charles Stanislas Canler (1764-1812) and a suitable location for it was sought in earnest. It became clear that the horses were valued as an artistic achievement when a plaster cast of a horse was made at the beginning of April 1814. The sculptor Henri-Victor Roguier (1758-1841) needed it for an equestrian statue of the Bourbon King Henry IV.

Daniel Berger (1744-1824), Uebermuth took them – Valour brings them back, aquatint on vellum, 1814, 27 x 38.6 cm, inv. no. GDR 90/11
© Stadtmuseum Berlin

The Quadriga returns home

In March 1814, the coalition armies allied against Napoleon entered into Paris and in early April the Quadriga began its journey back to Berlin, this time by land. It became a triumphal procession for the newly captured “chariot of victory”16 which lasted until 9th June 181417. Restoration work on the statue, which had once again become necessary, was carried out in Grunewald Palace18. Schadow was not involved. Around 50 blacksmiths, carpenters and servants worked on the Quadriga until 18th July. It was then transported to Berlin in late July. Schadow’s advice was now needed in order to mount it. Together with Karl Friedrich Schinkel (1781-1841) and Chief Building Officer (Oberbaurat) Johann Friedrich Moser (1771-1846), he went to the Brandenburg Gate on 29th July “to assess the position of the horses”, which “Mechanicus Hummel”19 had to set up. The next morning, mechanical engineer Johann Caspar Hummel (1774-1850) once again sought Schadow’s counsel.20

Since mid-May, Schadow and other Berlin-based artists had been busy preparing a festive illumination of the city to celebrate the victory over Napoleon. Schinkel designed the accompanying festive decorations as well as the Iron Cross, a new feature to be added to the Quadriga21. Schadow lent “the small model of the Quadriga”22 to medallist Daniel Friedrich Loos (1735-1819), who was planning a commemorative medal. In June, Schadow made a larger-than-life plaster model for ten papier-mâché Victoria figures that were to stand in front of the Brandenburg Gate. At the same time, he drew ideas for banners to be hung on private houses. By 4th August, he had to model two large plaster Victoria figures, his “Colossus”23, for the Opera Bridge. The Quadriga was finally unveiled on 7th August as Frederick William III’s troops paraded through a festively decorated Berlin.

Schadow’s Quadriga?

The Quadriga was the result of the joint intellectual endeavours and practical work of many people from different groups and positions, backgrounds and generations. Schadow barely identified himself artistically with the work: The Quadriga does not appear in his first autobiography, published in 180824. After 1814, Schadow wrote a text about its creation25. An autobiographical text from 1824 described the events of 1806/1807 and 181426, and Schadow’s autobiography from 1849 contains many of these events.
Ludwig Buchhorn (1770-1856), Portrait of Johann Gottfried Schadow, oil on canvas, 1821, 62.5 cm x 50.5 cm, inv. no. GEM 88/3
© Stadtmuseum Berlin

Schadow’s horses were once regarded as a symbol of status and triumph of aristocracy and power. Together with the Quadriga, they were originally part of a triumphal gate, the “Peace Gate”, commemorating a Prussian war in 1791. In 1945, when Berlin suffered widespread destruction at the end of the Second World War, the horses became the victims of war (it is believed that the Quadriga was deliberately shot at). The horse’s head became the symbolic spoils of the ideological battles that followed.

In early October 1952, this sole remnant of the ‘old’ Quadriga came to the Märkisches Museum, which today belongs to the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin. The then director and art historian Walter Stengel (1882-1960) considered only one of the two horse heads to be worth preserving. He found the other Quadriga pieces, which were stored in a warehouse on the Museum Island, to be “hopeless”27.

Stadtmuseum Berlin on the road

From 22 March 2024 to 26 January 2025, the horse’s head of the Quadriga will be on display in the exhibition “Loot. 10 Stories” at the Humboldt Forum.

About the author

Dr Claudia Czok, born in 1964, is an art historian and freelance exhibition curator. After studying in Halle and completing her doctorate on Schadow’s drawings, she worked at Kunstgalerie Gera, the Berlin Academy of Arts and the Kupferstichkabinett. She currently works at the Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Secret State Archives, GStA). She is a member of the board of trustees of the Schadow Gesellschaft Berlin e. V. and has taken on a sponsorship for the Darjes monument in Frankfurt (Oder). She curated the exhibitions “Unser Schadow” (2014) and “Ich. Menzel” (2015) for the Stiftung Stadtmuseum Berlin.

Footnotes

1 cf. Schmieder 2018.
2 Schadow 1788, p. 136.
3 Ibid. p. 137.
4 Cabinet decree of 11.4.1788 (copy); Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz Berlin (below: GStA), I. HA, Rep. 93 B, no. 3024, fol. 2.
5 J. Chr. Woellner an das Gouvernement der Stadt Berlin, Berlin, 13 September 1793, (copy); ibid., fol. 7.
6 Quoted from: Mackowsky 1927, p. 231 (transcribed differently in Siefart 1912, p. 12).
7 Ibid., p. 232.
8 Eckardt/Schadow 1987, p. 27.
9 Cf. Zentralarchiv, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (below: ZA), NL Sw 85.
10 VCf. C. G. Langhans an J. Chr. von Woellner, Berlin, 13.9.1793 (copy); GStA, I. HA, Rep. 93 B, no. 3024, fol. 4 ff.
11 Friedrich Wilhelm II. an J. Chr. von Woellner, Berlin, 11.7.1793 (copy); GStA, I. HA, Rep. 93 B, no. 3024, fol. 3.
12 Eckardt/Schadow 1987, vol. 1, p. 73.
13 Cf. J. G. Schadow:  J. G. Schadow Tagebuch, 1805/06–1824; ZA, NL Sw 1–59 and J. G. Schadow: Bericht zur Entstehung der Quadriga, [nach 1814]; ZA, NL Sw 185 and J. G. Schadow: Schreibkalender 1806; ZA, NL Sw 11.
14 Cf. D. –V. Denon an Unbekannt, Berlin, 25.11.1806; GStA, I. HA, Rep. 94 A, coll. Adam, no. 616.
15 Quoted from Savoy 2003, p. 143.
16 G. J. G. Rauch an das Militärgouvernement Berlin, 29.5.1814; GStA, I. HA, Rep. 94 A, coll. Adam, no. 648.
17 Cf. GStA, I. HA, Rep. 91 C, no. 1979.
18 Cf. G. J. G. Rauch an das Militärgouvernement Berlin, 29.5.1814; GStA, I. HA, Rep. 94 A, coll. Adam, no. 648.
19 J. G. Schadow: Schreibkalender 1814; ZA, Nl Sw 19.
20 Ibid.
21 Cf. GStA, I. HA, Rep. 93 B, no. 3024.
22 J. G. Schadow: Schreibkalender 1814; ZA, NL Sw 19.
23 Ibid.
24 Cf. Schadow 1808.
25 Cf. J. G. Schadow: Bericht über das Entstehen der Quadriga, [nach 1814]; ZA, NL Sw 85.
26 Cf. Schadow 1824.
27 Cf. ZA, II A/GD 0085, VA 773, vol. 40–41.

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