Amber Room
The Amber Room (German Bernsteinzimmer, Russian Янтарная комната) in the Catherine Palace of Tsarskoe Selo near Saint Petersburg is a complete chamber decoration of amber panels backed with gold leaf and mirrors. Due to its singular beauty, it was sometimes dubbed "The Eighth Wonder of the World."
It was created in the begining of 18th century in Prussia. Soon after its creation, it was given by the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm I, to his then ally, Tsar Peter the Great of the Russian Empire.
The Amber Room was looted during World War II by Nazi Germany, and knowledge of its whereabouts was lost in the chaos at the end of the war. Its exact fate remains a mystery to this day, and the search for it has been one of the greatest treasure hunts of all time.
Creation
It was made in 1701 at Charlottenburg, the Berlin palace of Friedrich I, the first king of Prussia, at the instigation of his second wife, Sophie Charlotte. The concept of the room and its design was by Andreas Schlüter. It was crafted by Gottfried Wolfram, master craftsman to the Danish court of King Frederick IV of Denmark, with help from the amber masters Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turau from Danzig (Gdańsk) in Poland.
It did not, however, remain at Charlottenburg for long. Peter the Great admired it on a visit and in 1716, Friedrich Wilhelm I, the first king's son, presented it to him, and with that act cemented a Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden.
In 1755 Tsarina Elizabeth Petrovna had it transferred and installed, first in the Winter Palace, and then in the Catherine Palace. From Berlin, Frederick II the Great sent her more Baltic amber, in order to fill out the originals in the new design by the tsarina's Italian court architect, Bartolomeo Rastrelli.
The Amber Room represented a joined effort of German and Russian craftsmen. After several other 18th-century renovations, it covered more that 55 square meters and contained over six tonnes of amber. It took over ten years to construct.
Disappearance
Shortly after the beginning of German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War II (Operation Barbarossa), the curators responsible for removing the art treasures of Leningrad tried to disassemble the Amber Room, so it could be removed to safety. However, over the years the amber had dried out and become brittle, so that when they tried to remove it, the fragile amber started to crumble. The Amber Room was therefore hidden behind mundane wallpaper, in an attempt to keep Nazi forces from seizing it. However, these attempts failed: the Nazis disassembled the Amber Room, and removed it to Königsberg Castle for storage and display.
Later in the war, Königsberg was heavily bombarded by the Royal Air Force, then further very heavily damaged by the advancing Soviets. The Amber Room was never seen again, though reports have occasionally surfaced stating that components of the Amber Room survived the war. There are conflicting reports that the Amber Room was destroyed by bombing, hidden in a now-lost subterranean bunker in Königsberg, buried in a mountain range on the Czech-German border not far from Berlin, or taken onto a Nazi ship or submarine which was sunk by Soviet forces in the Baltic Sea.
Many different individuals and groups, including a number of different entities from the government of the Soviet Union, have mounted extensive searches for it at various times since the war, with little result. However, one Italian stone mosaic that was part of a set decorating the Amber Room did turn up in West Germany, in the possession of the family of a soldier who had helped pack up the Amber Room.
Reconstruction
In 1979 a reconstruction effort began, based largely on black and white photographs of the original Amber Room. Financial difficulties were helped with money donated by a German agency. By 2003 the titanic work of the Russian craftsmen was mostly completed. The new room was dedicated by Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder at the 300-year anniversary of the city of Saint Petersburg.
In Kleinmachnow, near Berlin, there is a miniature Amber Room, fabricated after the original. The Berlin miniature collector Ulla Klingbeil had this copy made of original East Prussian amber. The exhibit fee at Europarc Dreilinden is donated to the Arilex-Verein Foundation to aid handicapped children.
Fiction
The mystery of the Amber Room has been the basis for the plot of several films and books.
See also
Further reading
- Scott-Clark, Catherine and Levy, Adrian (2004). The Amber Room. Atlantic Books, London. ISBN 1-84354-340-0.