The story of this place
Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, built the Zwinger from 1710 as an orangery and festival arena for a court obsessed with splendour. Its curved galleries, the Crown Gate and Balthasar Permoser's exuberant sculptures made it a masterpiece of German Baroque. Augustus filled it with the porcelain he collected so fanatically that he once traded a regiment of dragoons for a set of Chinese vases. The 1945 firestorm gutted the complex, but Dresden's citizens began rescuing and rebuilding it even under Soviet occupation, reopening the galleries by 1963. Today it houses the Old Masters Picture Gallery, including Raphael's Sistine Madonna and its famous pair of dreaming cherubs.