At the mercy of foreign powers, ruined by wars, imperial taxes, and sluggish trade – such was Nuremberg's political situation at the end of the eighteenth century.
In 1806, Nuremberg was incorporated into the Kingdom of Bavaria and lost its independence as a Free City of the Empire.
Nuremberg's splendor and decline is represented by new trades like the Nuremberg Faïence Manufacture on the one hand and the Neptune Fountain on the other. The story of the inglorious and compulsory sale of this fountain to St. Petersburg in 1796 is told in an 11-minute audio play next to a model of the fountain. In the audio play, Neptune himself describes his odyssey.
Paintings by Johann Adam Klein (1792-1875), one of the most important South German Biedermeier painters, provide a last glimpse of the artistic flourishing of a city on the verge of becoming an industrial center in the Kingdom of Bavaria.
Audio play: Neptune Fountain
11 minutes
German/ English