Horses
USA - Delaware State Quarter


Obverse
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Reverse
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Coin Details

  

Set Details
Coin Description: 20M 1990A BRANDENBURG GATE OPENING
Grade: NGC MS 65
Owner: brg5658
 
Set Category: Thematic & Topical Coins
Set Name: Horses
Slot Name: USA - Delaware State Quarter
Research: See NGC's Census Report for this Coin

Owner's Description

Purchased on 12/6/2012. The Brandenburg Gate is a former city gate, rebuilt in the late 18th century as a neoclassical triumphal arch, and now one of the most well-known landmarks in Berlin, and in Germany as a whole. It is the only remaining gate of a series through which Berlin was once entered. The gate is the monumental entry to Unter den Linden, the renowned boulevard of linden trees which formerly led directly to the city palace of the Prussian monarchs. It was commissioned by King Frederick William II of Prussia as a sign of peace and built by Carl Gotthard Langhans from 1788 to 1791. Having suffered considerable damage in World War II, the Brandenburg Gate was fully restored from 2000 to 2002 by the Berlin Monument Conservation Foundation. During the post-war Partition of Germany the gate was isolated and inaccessible immediately next to the Berlin Wall, and the area around the gate featured most prominently in the media coverage of the opening of the wall in 1989. Atop the gate is the Quadriga, a chariot drawn by four horses driven by Victoria, the Roman goddess of victory (originally Eirene goddess of peace). The capital Quadriga was sculpted by Johann Gottfried Schadow. After the 1806 Prussian defeat at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, the Quadriga was seized by Napoleon and taken to Paris. After Napoleon's defeat in 1814 and the Prussian occupation of Paris, it was returned to Berlin by Field Marshal Gebhard von Blücher. The olive wreath was subsequently replaced by an Iron Cross, a symbol of Prussian power. The statue suffered severe damage during the Second World War, and the association of the Iron Cross with Prussian militarism convinced the Communist government of East Germany to remove this aspect of the statue after the war. The iron cross was restored only after German reunification in 1990. The Quadriga faces east, as it did when it was originally installed in 1793.

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