unknown author, early 1890s (?)
plaster, cast
height 121 cm
The plaster cast of the figure of the King of Prussia, Frederick II the Great, is a reduced copy of a marble sculpture made in 1792-1793 by Johann Gottfried Schadow (1764-1850) for Szczecin.
Before World War II, this plaster copy of the statue of King Frederick II was kept in the Malbork Castle. It stood on a pedestal in the three-pillar hall (Council Hall) in the ground floor of the Grand Masters Palace. After World War I, it was moved to the hall of the castle library in the upper basement of the Palace. The information about placing the figure in the inventory from 1835 under number 629 is provided in the periodical published by the Society for the Reconstruction and Beautification of the Castle in Malbork Geschäftsbericht des Vorstandes des Vereins für die Herstellung und Ausschmückung der Marienburg für die Zeit vom 1. Januar 1926 bis 1927 31. There, apart from the note, is a photo of the copy. In the later inventories from the second half of the In the 19th century, the figure is included in section III, under number 19 (in the interwar period under number 18). An older photograph from 1885, from Albrecht Meydenbauer glass negatives stored in Berlin, shows a view of the interior of a three-pillar hall with a copy of the monument at the door to the hall. In the Castle Reconstruction Yearbook from 1918, it stands in the library’s rooms in the basement.
The plaster cast has not survived to presnt times.
(compiled by A. Dobry)
