Rüstkammer: Gewehrgalerie im Langen Gang

The Firearms Gallery in the Long Corridor at the Royal Palace

The “Long Corridor” is one of the most important examples of Renaissance architecture in Saxony. Elector Christian I commissioned the architect Paul Buchner (with the involvement of court artist Giovanni Maria Nosseni) to construct the Gallery (1588/90) to connect the Residenzschloss to the newly erected stable building (what is now the Johanneum).

Exhibition Site Residenzschloss

Opening Hours daily 10—18, Tuesday closed 03/10/2023 10—18 (zusätzlich geöffnet)

Admission Fees normal 14 €, reduced 10,50 €, under 17 free, Groups (10 persons and more) 12,50 €

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The space served as a gallery of ancestors for the House of Wettin and was decorated with the appropriate paintings by court painter Heinrich Göding the Elder and his workshop in 1598—1592. In 1733, a large part of the Rüstkammer firearms collection was transferred to the Long Corridor. The idea to do so might have originated under August the Strong, but it was his son and successor August III, who realized the project after his father´s death. From that time until today, the collection of long guns and pistols has been one of the most important princely firearms collections in Europe.

**Gewehrgalerie im Langen Gang, Residenzschloss Dresden**

Blick an die Decke — **rekonstruierte Renaissance-Holzdecke im Langen Gang im Residenzschloss**

“The personal arms of the king in the stable gallery” presented long guns and pistols according to type and geographical origin. The guns were kept and displayed in 18 cabinets placed in every second recessed arch. They constituted a representative collection but were also in use. The king and his court regularly used the ca. 1800 firearms for hunting and target-shooting. During the following two centuries, hundreds of firearms, pieces of hunting equipment, and crossbows were added to the collection.

The building and the wall paintings were heavily damaged in the bombing of 1945, but the firearms had been evacuated in time. They were taken to the Soviet Union after the war and returned almost in full in 1958/59.

historisches Foto eines Raumes mit Waffen — **Blick in den Langen Gang, Richtung Westen, vor der Neugestaltung 1932/33**

**Steinschlossbüchse (Detail des Laufes mit Porträtmedaillon König Augusts III. von Polen)**

**Radschlossbüchse des Kurfürsten Christian II. von Sachsen (Detail)** Marx Götersdorfer, Elias Leckner, Linz, 1601

**Turnier Herzog Augusts von Sachsen mit Hans von Schönfeld, Merseburg, 1544, Heinrich Göding d. Ä. und Werkstatt**

With the restoration of the historical space and coffered ceiling, a representative selection of ca. 500 of the most magnificent firearms of the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th centuries in the collection of the Saxon electors is now returning to the Long Corridor of the Residenzschloss. Shot guns, rifles, and pistols from all over Europe are exhibited in showcases modeled on the historical cabinets, following a geographical and chronological order. An impression of the tight installation of the “personal arms of the king” is presented at the end of the corridor, accompanied by ancestral portraits, pictures of tournaments, and deer trophies, in part from the original holdings of the Long Corridor.