A krater form vase with a panorama of Under den Linden

Berlin, KPM, 1830, the decoration by Eduard Wilhelm Forst, the bronze by Werner and Mieth, Berlin.

Prussian Auction - 21 April 2018 - Lempertz Berlin

Porcelain, gold ground with matt and glossy areas, etched decoration, enamel painting, gilt bronze mount on a wooden core underlaid with fabric.

Model 1466. Fired in two parts, original star-shaped screw

A broad, very finely painted, circumferential panorama of the Prachtstrasse in Berlin with the view to the west, with the Prinz Heinrich Palace (Humboldt University) to the right, the Neue Wache, the Zeughaus, behind that the Berliner Dom, the palace on the opposite side of the bridge, the Kommandantur in front of it on the south side of the street coming back, the Kronprinzenpalais and the Opera (the State Opera today).

The lower and upper body is divided into many horizontal zones with alternating antique decoration: etched palmettes, beading, vermicular and acanthus. Decorative figures are depicted in front of the buildings, strolling and driving coaches, and riders and dogs. The pride of the residents of Berlin in their newly designed city could not have been expressed better than in the creation of this panorama depicting the development of the city from an elevated perspective. The originator of this method of capturing a circumferential view was the Irishman Robert Barker whose first panorama was already seen in 1788. 

The Berlin Auction becomes the Prussian Auction

Panorama painting experienced an upturn due to the paintings of Eduard Gaertner (1801 - 1877) who settled there in 1828 after his return from Paris as a freelance painter, enchanting the whole of Berlin with his breathtaking, large-format works which captured the unusual perspectives of Schinkel’s new buildings. His life had already made a decisive contribution to the creation of this vase: in 1813 Gaertner began his training at the painting workshop of KPM. Although the highly talented young man left the manufacture in 1821, his traces were left behind. The painters there were impressed by his ideas and gratefully accepted them, as this important crater vase verifies.