Cornerstone dating to 1822 yields intriguing insights into art museum’s history

A surprising discovery was made behind a discreet hole in a wall of the Bonn Academic Art Museum: a cornerstone of around 200 years dating from building the building. A lead plate hidden inside tells the origins of the historic building.

The cornerstone was discovered during the trench excavation to lay pipes for the new rotunda access zone. The project engineers had noticed an unusual discharge arch above the masonry, which provided an idea that something of the ordinary could be there.

The revealing moment

When opening the cornerstone, a lead plate dated 1822 was found inside. The building was completed between 1824 and 1825. The registration of the plate shows that the installation of the cornerstone was an important event to follow by eminent politicians and scientists, and grants credit to manufacturers:

“In August, I MDCCCXXII [1822] in the XXV [25th] Year of the reign of Friedrich Wilhelm III king of Prussia. In the presence of: Chancellor Carl Fuerst Hardenberg, Minister of Altenstein Cultural Affairs, Private Advisor and Conservative, Rector Gratz, professor of Mayer anatomy, Windeck mayor, this cornerstone of the future anatomy has been deposited. The manufacturers were: the construction inspector WaeSelmann, construction driver: Stier LD Leydel, Brambach construction assistant, Master Mason: Quantius. “”

The office for preserving the archaeological monument of the Landschaftsverband Rheinland (LVR) documented discovery and now scientifically assessed in partnership with the LVR State Museum in Bonn.

To ensure that pipelines could be properly placed, it was agreed with the LVR that the cornerstone would be rejected to a slightly deeper position once the documentation process is completed. The discovery has since been returned in its place, continuing to function as a cornerstone, as initially planned.

“This discovery is like a time capsule in the sense that it offers us a rare look at people behind the original construction of this building,” said Michael Neuß, technical director of the competent branch of Cologne de BLB NRW (the organization of management of the building and real estate management of the state of Rhine-Westphalia of the North). “The discovery brings us back to the first days of construction at the same time as we renovate the building to maintain it to modern standards for future generations of researchers.”

More than 200 years of scientific history

The building which now houses the Academic Art Museum has a legendary history, having initially been the domicile of the Institute for Anatomy for more than five decades before becoming the ease of the Institute of Classical Archeology in 1885. The antiquity collection was approached, which was moved due to the germinal renovation today.

The professor of the rector Michael Hoch commented: “The cornerstone of 1822 is an unusual archaeological discovery, because it symbolically indicates the long and dynamic history of our institution. Excellence that we are today.”

“Finding an cornerstone is an extraordinary thing, even for experienced archaeologists,” said Joanna Chanko Ma, scientific advisor to the LVR office for the preservation of the archaeological monument in the Rhineland region. “The huge dimensions 90 cm long and 60 cm high and the material – downright siliceous, probably ignored, rock – immediately attract the attention of everyone.

“When the cornerstone was opened in the restoration workshops of the LVR State Museum in Bonn, it was surprising to find the main panel inside. We all expected that there were typical parts and newspaper cuts from the date of laying the cornerstone.

The history of 200 years of the museum of academic art is closely linked to eminent individuals like Friedrich Gottlieb Welcker, Otto Jahn and Reinhard Kekule von Stradonitz, who in the 19th century laid the foundations of the scientific importance that the museum has today. Academics such as Georg Loeschcke, Franz Winter, Richard Delbrueck, Ernst Langlotz and Nikolaus Himmelmann would later do the internationally known building under the name of a leading center for archeology and art history.