What looks like a kitsch painting on the living room wall of a 1900 Berlin bourgeoisie is, in fact, a scene from what became one of Berlin’s most spectacular roundabouts. It shows Berlin‘s Großer Stern (Big Stern), a circular junction in the heart of the Tiergarten. A place which less than three decades later was to undergo a complete and thorough facelift.
But in the early years of the twentieth century it was still a relatively quiet spot. At its centre: Hubertusbrunnen, a large and elaborate fountain created by the splendidly named Cuno von Uetrichtz-Steinkirch. A fountain which was unveiled on November 2, 1904 not far away from von Uetrichtz-Steinkirch’s best-known works: the statues of Hohenzollern rulers displayed in Tiergarten’s Siegesallee and commonly referred to as Puppen (Dolls).
Hubertusbrunnen was not his only fountain (another one, Gänseliesen-Brunnen, in Berlin-Wilmersdorf was gradually dismantled and melted for “war effort”) but it was by all means the largest.
It had everything that the Kaiser and his entourage appreciated in art: a Hirsch (deer), a hunter and plenty of rocks. But the fountain itself was only part of a bigger ensemble. It was surrounded by several hunt-themed works by other artists: all presenting different form of hunt throughout the ages. A wild boar hunt, fox hunt, chasing hare and hunting an European bison, a Wisent.
If these images ring a bell that it because, unlike the Hubertusbrunnen itself, you might have seen them. After in 1938 the fountain was demolished to make room for a new and bigger Großer Stern as well as for the Siegessäule - the Victory Column, that was about to be moved from its original spot before the Reichstag - the four groups of sculptures installed to compliment it on the roundabout were moved to a new spot in the Tiergarten.
You will find them in Fasanenallee.
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