A palace that belonged to a banker
1885 and 1891: the palace, the gift and the permit
Two dates get tangled in this story, and they are different events. The 1885 purchase made von Gwinner the owner; the handover on 12 March 1891 made him a donor, when by the Alhambra's own record he handed ownership of the Partal to the State.[9] A plaque on the tower records the building as ceded free of charge by Arthur Gwinner Dreiss of Frankfurt.[10]
The gift came with a condition. In return he received permission to remove and export the wooden ceiling of the observation tower, which was later reinstalled in his home in Berlin.[11]
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Alhambra
The Alhambra is Granada's UNESCO fortress-palace: Nasrid Palaces, Alcazaba and Generalife gardens. Tickets sell out weeks ahead; book via the Patronato site.
On his return to Germany, the Berlin foundation adds, he signed the palace over to the city of Granada rather than the State, and the permission to take the dome down came with it.[12] Spain, in effect, traded a ceiling for a palace.
He did not strip it blind. Before the dome left, von Gwinner had general plans drawn and some details traced at full size, and he left the originals with the Alhambra.[13]
What the dome is, and where it went
This is no panel you could carry out under a coat. The cupola stands almost two metres tall on a footprint three and a half metres each way, and was estimated at almost 540 kg without its iron parts.[16][17] Its myriad pieces are cedar, poplar and other conifer wood, carved and painted one by one.[18]
Around the cornice run stalactite-like muqarnas carrying an Arabic inscription of the Nasrid motto, There is no victor but God.[19]
In Berlin von Gwinner went further than reinstalling the dome. He had the Partal's stucco work moulded and set the casts beneath it, so the carving sat over plaster copies of the palace's own decoration.[20]
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In 1942 the dome was moved out of Berlin to the family's country estate in the Altmark for safekeeping, its panels packed in crates.[21]
Spain's pass, Berlin's purchase
By the late 1970s the dome belonged to von Gwinner's descendants, and the Museum for Islamic Art in Berlin dates its acquisition from them to 1978.[2] The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation's press release puts the heirs' offer in 1979 and adds that the Spanish government had no interest, so the museum bought it.[3] The year differs; the outcome does not. Why Spain declined is not documented: the release records only that the Spanish government had no interest.
From 2000 to October 2023 visitors could see it in the Museum for Islamic Art at the Pergamonmuseum.[22] It was taken down in July 2024 for the building's refurbishment, and the plan is to put it back on show in the new permanent exhibition, scheduled to open in 2027.[23]
No Berlin viewing until the new galleries open
The cupola has been off public display since October 2023 and was dismantled in July 2024. It is due back only when the new permanent exhibition opens, scheduled for 2027, so check the museum's current listing before building a Berlin trip around it.[23]
That display is meant to recreate the Torre de las Damas as a mirador with ten windows, with an anteroom tracing the dome's route from Granada to Berlin.[24]
What you see in the tower now
The dome overhead in the tower is the reproduction. The Spanish government ordered it in the 1960s, built from the drawings made before the original came down,[1] and the Alhambra's 1966 chronicle names the cabinetmaker José Romera Baena as the man who made it in the same technique as the original.[25]
Another Alhambra dome lost and rebuilt from drawings, the Sala de la Barca after the 1890 fire, makes a useful comparison. A guided tour of the Alhambra is the easiest way to have the Partal's story told on the spot.
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The irony is neat. The drawings that made the copy possible were commissioned by the man who took the original, and he left them with the Alhambra.[13] Spain ended up with the palace, the drawings and a reproduction; Berlin has the carving.