Exhibition Presentation

About the Exhibition

During the 19th century, the whole of Europe was transformed into a vast construction site of public and private buildings. Most of these buildings are stylistically tributary to the artistic phenomenon called Historicism, through the eclecticism of aesthetic options and through the ideological-historical significance, linked to the idea of national identity, as well as to that of the antiquity of noble families.

Historicism brings back to reality forgotten stylistic formulas, such as Gothic styles, early and late Renaissance, Baroque, etc.

PeleÈ™ Castle is included in the list of historicist monuments, the architects and decorators hired by the client, King Carol I, managing to create, both in the exterior architecture and in the design of the rooms, a stylistic synthesis in which the German Neo-Renaissance style predominates.

The temporary exhibition, German Neo-Renaissance at Peleş Castle, highlights the importance of this artistic phenomenon for the development of Peleş Castle as the cradle of the Hohenzollern dynasty in Romania. Through the pieces of decorative and plastic art from the museum's heritage, an atmosphere specific to the first phase of the completion of the construction works, 1882-1883, is created. The importance of German artistic creations that enrich the art collection of King Carol I, of the furniture manufacturers Julius Daniel Heymann from Hamburg and August Bembé from Mainz, of the silver suppliers from Augsburg, Nuremberg and Munich, of the Rhenish workshops producing stoneware beer mugs and of the painted glass objects made in the workshops in Bavaria is highlighted.

There is no shortage of paintings and sculptures, creations of German artists, Paul Schad-Rossa, Eduard Haaga and Carl Fischer who, at the end of the 19th century, used as sources of inspiration, leading Renaissance authors: Albrecht Dürer, Hans Burgkmair and Holbein the Younger.

Because the German Neo-Renaissance was also propagated in regional artistic creation, it is exemplified by a special module dedicated to German cabinetmakers and ceramists from the Baden-Württemberg, Rhein, etc. area.

The German Neo-Renaissance exhibition at PeleÅŸ Castle brings together approximately 150 pieces of high artistic value from the royal heritage and is accompanied by a richly illustrated catalog, created by the museographers of the PeleÅŸ National Museum.

Liliana Manoliu,
curator

Exhibition Opening

Visiting the Exhibition

The exhibition was visited during:
October 21 – January 13, 2012