Model of the City of Munich
Johann Baptist Seitz, Franz von Seitz, Anselm Sickinger, Joseph Furtmayr
Munich, 1850–1863
Pearwood, walnut
600,0 cm
Inv.-Nr. Modell 16
Transferred from the Royal Collections after 1866
Gallery 53
In 1841 Johann Baptist Seitz, a copperplate engraver in the Topography Office, was commissioned by King Ludwig I to make an up-to-date model of the capital city of Bavaria. The amazing accuracy with which Seitz worked led to corrections in the official city plans and resulted in an exact reproduction of mid–19th-century Munich. The architect Friedrich von Gärtner supervised his work from 1843. After Seitz’s death in 1850, the model was moved to the Pinakothek. The city model had only been three quarters completed by the time of Seitz’s passing, and from 1853 onwards his son Franz continued work on it. In 1858 the sculptor Anselm Sickinger took up the task, adding Maximilianstraße and the eastern quarters of the city. It was at this time that the model’s round shape with Marienplatz at the centre was adopted. The model had taken on the form in which we see it today by 1863.
des Bayerischen Nationalmuseum
des Bayerischen Nationalmuseum
