Neumarkt in Dresden

In the middle of the 18th century, the Italian painter Bernardo Bellotto, who also used the stage name Canaletto, moved to Dresden. Here he won with his realistic images the favor of the Elector Augustus III. and the Cabinet Minister Heinrich von Brühl. As a Dresden court painter, he designed 14 views of the city, including the painting Neumarkt in Dresden. The architecture and the life in the market place are reproduced so faithfully in the picture that the viewer needs several moments to capture all the details. The building on the left side, in the direction of which the carriage moves, was then home to the Gemäldegalerie, which today resides in Semperbau am Zwinger and exhibits, among other things, Bellotto's Dresdner paintings. In the depths of the painting you can see the Frauenkirche, a Protestant-Lutheran Baroque building. After the death of his two patrons August III. and Heinrich von Brühl lost his reputation to Bellotto in Dresden and settled in Warsaw. His depictions of Dresden were largely forgotten and were rediscovered years later as authentic testimonies of the city's history.