Jägerhof

Jägerhof stands in Dresden’s Neustadt district as the area’s oldest monument, with Renaissance forms dating from the sixteenth century. Only the west wing survives from the original four-wing complex, and three polygonal stair towers rise beside volutes on the gable.

Elector Augustus of Saxony began construction in 1569, and the building gained its upper floor in 1617. It later served the electoral court, housed forty bears in 1654, and became a Saxon cavalry barracks from 1830 to 1877. The Museum of Saxon Folk Art has occupied the building since 1913, while the Puppet Theater Collection joined it in 2005. Air raids destroyed the upper floors in February 1945, but the ground floor survived and the museum reopened in 1950.

A sandstone hunter with a dog stands before the building, represented by a copy made by Hans Thiele between 1979 and 1983. The original sculptures remain inside the museum foyer and at the hunting museum in Augustusburg, while Eva Peschel’s ceramic Blütenbaum fountain stands nearby.