How did the Quadriga get back from Paris to Berlin? That was the question in my original post. The short answer: it returned in 1814, after Napoleon’s defeat and forced abdication. It had been taken to Paris in 1806, according to visitBerlin’s history of the Brandenburg Gate.
The journey in three dates
- 1793: Johann Gottfried Schadow’s Quadriga was placed on the gate.
- 1806: Following Prussia’s defeat, Napoleon took the sculpture to Paris.
- 1814: The Allied victory made its return possible, and it was put back on the gate.
Berlin’s official city website documents that sequence. The Quadriga is the sculpture of a chariot and four horses above the gate, rather than the gate itself.
Is the sculpture there today the one taken to Paris?
No. The original was severely damaged in the Second World War. Berlin’s monument authority identifies the sculpture now on the gate as a replica completed in 1958. That matters when telling the story: the design carries the earlier history, but the present sculpture is not the same surviving object Napoleon took.
Another Berlin post explores the League of Prizren and the events of 1878.