New Wing (Charlottenburg Palace)

The New Wing is a separate structure to the east of the main Charlottenburg Palace building commissioned by Frederick the Great (1712-1786) and designed by Georg Wenceslaus von Knobelsdorffs. This separate royal palace contains two apartments for the king and two large ballrooms. Subsequent generations of Prussia’s rulers also left their mark. For example, in 1796, Friedrich Wilhelm II (1744-1797) set up a summer apartment on the ground floor and winter apartment upstairs, both in a Neo-Classical style. Friedrich Wilhelm III (1770-1840) and his wife Luise (1776-1810) also lived in the New Wing. The rooms of the Royal Apartments, the White Hall and the Golden Gallery are now once again open to the public. The vestibule of the New Wing was already used to display sculpture around the turn of the last century; it once again houses marble and plaster sculptures by Johann Gottfried (1764-1850), Ridolfo Schadow (1786-1822) and Christian Daniel Rauch’s (1777-1857) second reclining figure of Queen Luise. The latter was originally in the Antiquities Temple at Sanssouci in Potsdam. The sculptures are outstanding examples of the development of Berlin sculpture modelled after Roman antiquity and Romanticism. Also returning to the New Wing are French paintings of the 18th century, including Antoine Watteau’s (1684-1721) “Embarkation to Cythera” and “The Shop Sign of Gersaint”, considered one of the key works of its century.