Georgium, English-style park and classical palace in Dessau-Roßlau, Germany

The Georgium is a classicist country house built from 1780 for Prince Johann Georg to plans by Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff, north of old Dessau in the Ziebigk district. The photograph shows a long white facade with flat pilasters, tall green-framed windows under triangular and segmental pediments, a green double door in the central pedimented section, a balustrade along the roofline and a square tower with arched openings above the red-tiled roof. Two side wings were added around 1900, when the house was adapted for the widowed hereditary princess Elisabeth. The surrounding English-style park covers 21.3 hectares and adjoins the 97-hectare Beckerbruch floodplain.

Prince Johann Georg commissioned architect Friedrich Wilhelm von Erdmannsdorff in 1780 to design the palace and create the gardens. The complete project was finished in 1783, exemplifying late 18th-century classical architecture.

The palace has housed the Anhaltische Gemäldegalerie since 1959. Its roughly 1,800 paintings and 18,000 works on paper come from the collections of the Anhalt princely house, the city of Dessau and the Free State of Anhalt, with strengths in the Reformation, Baroque and Goethe periods, including works by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Johann Friedrich August Tischbein.

The park is open year-round and welcomes visitors to walk through its different garden sections at no charge. The palace museum operates on separate hours and requires paid admission to visit the interior rooms.

The park extends beyond the 21.3-hectare Georgengarten into the 97-hectare Beckerbruch, a floodplain and marsh woodland left close to its natural state but dotted with small buildings and monuments. The Elbe pavilion and the Wallwitzburg, an artificial ruin, give wide views over the garden landscape along the Elbe.