figure PRINZESSINNENGRUPPE

On December 24, 1793, the future King Frederick William III married Luise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz; his brother Ludwig married Friederike, Luise’s younger sister, two days later. In 1795, the court sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow created a life-size clay model of the princesses. At the same time, a scaled-down version of the PRINCESSES GROUP was produced in bisque porcelain for the “ Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur ” in Berlin; it is listed in the model book under model number 1246 in August 1796. This masterpiece of porcelain art is composed of 88 individual pieces. Commissioned by the Prussian King Frederick William II, the double statue of the two princesses was also executed in marble and completed in 1797. The double statue of Crown Princess Luise of Prussia (1776–1810) and her sister Princess Friederike (1778–1841), the PRINCESSES GROUP, was commissioned by the Prussian King Frederick William II shortly after the December 1793 marriage of the two sisters—who were from the House of Mecklenburg-Strelitz—to his sons, the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William III (1770–1840) and Prince Ludwig (1773–1796). Not only the king, who chose the sisters as wives for his sons, but also other contemporaries were captivated by the two women’s youthful beauty. In 1793, Goethe wrote that one could “take the two young ladies for heavenly apparitions, the impression of whom will never fade from my memory.” This fascination extended not only to the subjects themselves; Schadow’s work also caused a great sensation during its presentation at the Berlin Academy exhibition in September 1797. There, the sculptor exhibited a life-size marble version of the PRINCESSES GROUP (at times in the vestibule of the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin), while smaller versions were produced in bisque porcelain by the Royal Porcelain Manufactory in Berlin for sale. An elegant austerity—entirely in the spirit of Classicism—combined with the grace of the subject, never ceases to enchant the viewer. To this day, the Berlin Porcelain Manufactory continues to produce this exquisite figurative group entirely by hand. To do so, 88 individually cast porcelain parts are assembled into a new work of art through meticulous artistic modeling and then fired.