Granitschale im Lustgarten

Granitschale im Lustgarten stands in Berlin’s Lustgarten, directly before the Altes Museum. The granite bowl spans 6.91 metres and weighs about 75 tonnes.

King Frederick William III commissioned Christian Gottlieb Cantian to create it for the museum’s rotunda. Its size moved the work outdoors, where a single stone now forms the largest bowl of its kind. Cantian used the Großer Markgrafenstein, a granite erratic transported from Sweden by glaciers, instead of a brittle 600-tonne block. Numerous stonemasons and blacksmiths split and shaped the stone, while painter Johann Erdmann Hummel recorded the demanding process in paintings and sketches.

The boulder is believed to be more than one billion years old. During the Biedermeier era, the finished bowl represented endurance, strength and national pride.

City: Berlin
Content updated: 2026-06-22

Image: The original uploader was Muns at German Wikipedia.CC BY-SA 3.0
Image: Times CC BY-SA 3.0
Image: ReganiPublic domain
Image: Johann Erdmann HummelPublic domain
Image: Johann Erdmann HummelPublic domain

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