Marmorgalleriet på Frederiksborg (1619-2019). Var der et oprindeligt projekt? Og blev det nogensinde fuldført?

Resumé

The Marble Gallery at Frederiksborg (1619–2019): What was the original plan and was it ever completed?
In connection with the planned restoration of the Marble Gallery from 1619-21 at Frederiksborg Palace (at an estimated cost of some 79 mill. Danish Crowns), a research team established by the Frederiksborg Museum of National History has raised doubts about the reliability of early Danish-Dutch evidence concerning the Gallery’s original iconographic programme. The present paper aims to demonstrate that these doubts are based upon a misunderstanding of this early evidence, in general as well as in detail. Re-examining the original iconographic evidence, a number of misidentifications are set right and crucial new aspects of the monument’s early history uncovered. Through a systematic comparison of the early written and visual evidence with the surviving elements of the original sculptural decoration from the workshop of Hendrick de Keyser in Amsterdam it is shown that in spite of the havoc caused by the fire in 1859 as well as by previous and subsequent restorations, enough survives to affirm that Hans van Steenwinckel’s original sculptural programme for the Marble Gallery was indeed focused on the seven planet gods and completed according to plan. The piano nobile balustrade was adorned with seven reliefs showing their chariots, and seven full-figure statues of the gods themselves stood high on top of the Gallery, from west to east Mercury, Saturn, Luna (Diana), Jupiter, Venus, Sol (Apollo) and Mars.