3-003-900 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Coronation of the King and Queen of Prussia: the King passing under the triumphal arch in the Alexander Platz [in Berlin] - from a sketch by our special artists, 1861. View of '...the triumphal arch, a building the style of which is unparalleled in the history of architecture. This monster of human invention is as ugly as £1500 can make it, with flags, banners, beams, velvet, statues, and escutcheons thrown promiscuously into a heap. Over the mass rise four excrescences, which, I suppose, are professionally called towers, though with an amount of euphemism that presses hard upon the good-natured leniency of truth...the anomalous portal was certainly meant for the grandest show in the world, and by children, and other lovers of toys on a large scale, will no doubt be accepted as a chef d'oeuvre, worthy of the place it occupies, and the illustrious personage condemned to pass under it...Upon this formless mass 15,000ft. of gilding has been squandered, in addition to eight colossal statues, and such a number of garlands and festoons as to require a special train to convey them from the country".' From "Illustrated London News", 1861.