Die Quadriga vom Brandenburger Tor

Everybody knows the Quadriga on top of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. The goddess on the chariot with the four horses is, after all, a national symbol of Ger-many. But do we really "know" the Quadriga? The plaster molding workshop in the German parliament building, which restored the plaster models of the Quadriga, revealed some astonishing insights.
During World War II, the Quadriga on top of the Brandenburg Gate was molded by experts from the plaster molding shop of the Staatliche Museen. When the original group of figures was actually destroyed during the war, the plaster molding shop together with the Noack foundry was able to produce a faithful replica in 1957. Previously made master models in plaster played a central role in this. These were restored in 2020-22 in an on-site workshop of the State Museums in cooperation with the Art Collection of the German Bundestag and the Berlin Office for the Protection of Monuments. The models show a fascinating closeness to Schadow's lost work, have preserved authentic traces of historical changes to the work, and represent a primary source on the history of the German national symbol.