Five Virtues Statues in Hatzbach

The figures were previously on the Fasanerie Island in the Lahn in Marburg. August von Knoblauch zu Hatzbach had it dismantled there since July 22, 1867, in order to set it up in the garden of his estate in Hatzbach. August von Knoblauch paid the impressive sum of 112 Reichstaler and 20 silver groschen for the time for the transport. He was probably not even aware of the important works of art he had brought to Hatzbach.

In fact, the figures were created around 150 years earlier by the Marburg sculptor Johann Friedrich Sommer (1684-ca. 1746/47). He received the order for this in the summer of 1718 from the Landkomtur of the Teutonic Order in Hesse, Cardinal Damian Hugo von Schönborn. Since 1258 Marburg was the headquarters of the order in what is now Hesse. Its buildings stood around the Elisabeth Church. Adjacent to this, Damian Hugo von Schönborn had a baroque park with a pleasure garden laid out. In addition to extraordinary plants, water features and greenhouses, five larger-than-life, stone figures of virtue on stately plinths were to attract the attention of the beholder.