3. Amber as a work of art

Amber Salon

Amber, or in short, tree resin petrified over time, has traditionally been considered a valuable raw material also because it is not known exactly how long it has existed in nature. The oldest amber jewellery dates back over 13,000 years, and amber is still a valuable resource in many cultures around the world.

Because amber was so valuable in the 18th century, the illicit trade in amber was punishable by death. The amber trade was almost monopolised by Prussian/German knights, and the technique of creating amber jewellery and furniture pieces became increasingly complicated in the 17th and 18th centuries.

While many people associate amber with the dinosaur DNA capsule from the 1993 film Jurassic Park, the Amber Room, which was created from tons of the gemstone, has enchanted Europeans, especially Russians, for generations. The Amber Room was a gift to Peter the Great in 1716 to celebrate peace between Russia and Prussia, but its fate was not peaceful: the Nazis stole it during World War II, and the amber panels, which had been placed in crates, disappeared in the final months of the war.

Jewellery gift

The Amber Room or Hall, a set of panels made from six tons of amber and set on gold-leafed walls with mosaics and mirrors, was a tribute to the beauty and importance of this material.

Construction of the Amber Room began in 1701. It was first presented to Friedrich I at Prussia's first residence, Charlottenburg Palace. The chamber was designed by the German Baroque sculptor Andreas Schlüter and built by the Danish amber craftsman Gottfried Wolfram, together with the amber masters Ernst Schacht and Gottfried Turau.

On a visit to the Amber Chamber, Peter the Great of Russia was very impressed, and the King of Prussia, Frederick William I, presented it to him as a gift in 1716, establishing a Prussian-Russian alliance against Sweden.

The Amber Room was brought to Russia in 18 large boxes and exhibited as part of a collection of European art at the Winter House in St Petersburg. The chamber was transported to Catherine's Palace in Pushkin, known as Tsarskoye Selo, or "Tsar's Seat", by Queen Elizabeth in 1755. Using extra amber brought from Berlin, Italian designer Bartolomeo Francesco Rastrelli reconfigured the room to fit the size of the new one.

The room covered about 180 square metres after repeated restorations in the 18th century and sparkled with six tons of amber and other semi-precious stones. The amber panels were covered with gold leaf, and the Amber Room served over time as a private meditation room for Tsarina Elizabeth, a sitting room for Catherine the Great and a trophy room for the amber collector Alexander II.

The Nazi plunder

Adolf Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa on 22 June 1941, sending three million German forces into the Soviet Union. As a result of the invasion, thousands of art treasures were looted, including the famous Amber Room.

Officials and curators of the Catherine Palace tried to hide the Amber Room by covering it with thin wallpaper. But the German soldiers were not fooled, and the Amber Room was dismantled in 36 hours, packed into 27 containers and taken to Königsberg, Germany (now Kaliningrad, Russia). The room was reinstalled at the castle museum in the Baltic coastal town of Königsberg.

Alfred Rohde, directorul muzeului, era un pasionat de chihlimbar și a investigat istoria panourilor de cameră în următorii doi ani, în timp ce aceasta era expusă. Având în vedere situația de război și posibilitatea unor bombardamente, Rohde a fost îndemnat să deconstruiască camera de chihlimbar și să o depoziteze în lăzi.

Later, the town was demolished and the castle museum was reduced to ruins by Allied bombing. And with that, the trace of the Amber Room disappeared.

Many historians have tried to understand how the boxes containing many tons of amber could disappear. The most common idea is that these containers were blown up during the 1944 raids. Others claim that pieces of the Amber Room are still in Kaliningrad, while others believe they were transported aboard a ship and are now buried under the Baltic Sea.

At least, the background of the new Amber Room is known, and to delve deeper into this subject, we invite you to read the second part of this article where we discuss in more detail the mystery of the disappearance of this jewel.