About this place
West of Sanssouci's terraces the park loosens its collar. The Rehgarten, the deer garden, was royal hunting ground that Frederick the Great reshaped between 1745 and 1763 into meadows, groves and curving walks, an early nod to the English landscape style that still shelters a few deer. Cutting through it is the two kilometre Hauptallee linking the pleasure garden to the Neues Palais. Along the winding paths the king set four colossal Carrara marble herms of the seasons as signposts: Flora for spring, Ceres for summer, a flute playing faun for autumn and a bearded man with a gourd for winter. Weather nearly destroyed them; removed in 2006, Spring, Summer and Winter were painstakingly rebuilt and returned to their original places in July 2022.
Key facts
- 4.5 metres — Height of each Four Seasons herm, head and torso rising from a tall marble shaft
- 1763 year — Completion of the Rehgarten, begun in 1745 as one of the continent's first landscape gardens
- 16 years — The herms spent in the restoration workshop, lifted away in 2006 and returned in July 2022
📍 Hauptallee, 14469, Potsdam