Andreas Schlüter

German sculptor

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Andreas Schlüter (baptized May 22, 1664?, Hamburg?—died 1714, St. Petersburg, Russia) was a sculptor and architect, the first important master of the late Baroque style in Germany, noted for infusing the bravura style of Baroque sculpture with a tense, personal quality.

Schlüter’s early life is obscure, but he received training in Danzig and was active in Warsaw (1689–93). In 1694 he was called to Berlin as court sculptor by the elector Frederick III, and it is with Berlin and the Hohenzollern, the royal family of Prussia, that his name is primarily associated. The bronze statue of Frederick III (1696–97), now at Kaliningrad (formerly Königsberg), and the equestrian statue of the great elector Frederick William (completed in 1703), now in the forecourt of Schloss Charlottenburg, Berlin, are among the most important of his surviving sculptures. Both testify to Schlüter’s familiarity with the work of the sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini in Rome and that of the sculptor François Girardon at the French court.

Between 1698 and 1706 Schlüter was actively engaged in Berlin in directing building operations and supplying sculptural decorations for the arsenal, the royal palace, and the old post office, which was demolished in 1889. The royal palace (considered to be his greatest achievement) was a casualty of World War II, but the sculptured keystones from the arsenal, particularly the series of dying warriors, survive as the supreme example of Schlüter’s genius. The collapse of the Mint Tower, built on sandy soil adjacent to the royal palace, brought an abrupt end to Schlüter’s career as supervisor of the royal buildings and saddened his last years. He was summoned by Peter the Great to St. Petersburg in 1713 but died the following year without having achieved anything of note there.