, 1997

In 1732, the architect Jan Bouman was called from Amsterdam to Potsdam. We have him to thank for the flair of the Dutch quarter. When a museum was named after him in 1997, the castings of two medallions arrived from the Netherlands as a gift. In a double meaning, the symbolize the "marriage" of Brandenburg-Dutch relations. Frederick Wilhelm, later referred to as the Great Elector, spent parts of his youth in the Netherlands. There he also came upon his first wife, Princess Louise Henriette of Nassau. On the occasion of their wedding in 1647, François Dieussart created two marble medallions with the likeness of the couple. When Wilhelm II., the last Prussian king and German emperor, abdicated, he took them along into exile. With the confiscation of the little castle in Doorn in 1945, the medallions were taken by the Netherlands as well. Exactly 350 years after being made, they returned in 1997. Even if only made of plaster.