1740 and All That

First of all, I encourage anyone who hasn't seen any pictures of Sanssouci before to check out my Sanssouci in Summer pic spam first, both because there's far more to see, and because that's what it was designed for, being a summer residence; our antihero spent the winter months in Berlin. However, having been there recently, I could not resist and walked the palace grounds in mid November.





( More autumnal impressions of Sanssouci await )


The trip to Potsdam was extra; mainly I was in Berlin on this visit, and between work did check out some Frederician buildings in the city centre when walking past them.

( Meanwhile in Berlin )

Let's start with a Lehndorff diary entry. When Wilhelmine was alive, he was at times critical of her (too much Fritz praise, something of a snob, make-up, likes books better than most people), but did admire her intelligence and thought she should have been a Queen. Otoh, by the time he visited Bayreuth for the first time, in June 1782 - when not only Wilhelmine but also her husband and daughter were dead, and Bayreuth had been taken over by the Ansbach in-laws -, he was in a much more mellow mood about her, and full of admiration for what she had created, and wrote:

„From there, I visit the Eremitage, about an hour away from Bayreuth. This is a beautiful palace. I have never seen anything which has caused me as much pleasure to watch. It shows an exquisite, incomparable sense of art. The spirit of the late Margravine, the older sister of my King, can be found everywhere. Especially beautiful to me is the grave of Vergil which the Margravine has had copied exactly as she herself as seen it. There is a grotto theatre here which is unique for its kind. In order to get to the palace, one has to cross the Parnassuss, the mountain of the Muses. I spend four hours in this wonderful place. Sadness fills me as I have to leave it, and have to tell me that so much beauty no longer finds any attention since the serene lady who has created it has gone. Oh vanity of vanities!
The new palace with its grotto and shell decoration in blue and white looks like it has escaped a fairy tale. Further, I visit the new Bayreuth promenade, which has been built under the supervision of Baron Seckendorff, who is the current first minister. I visit the opera house as well. Everything shows its builder’s wonderful taste. But all is dead! It is this which fills me with sadness.

I hear you, Lehndorff. Let's start with the tombs of Wilhelmine, her husband and her daughter, in the former palace church, the Schlosskirche. Now, Bayreuth was Lutheran-Protestant. But due to all the Italians and some of the French the various Margraves, especially Wilhelmine, hired, there grew to be a sizable Catholic minority in Bayreuth. By 1813, they were given the Schlosskirche to use. Decades later, the requiem for Franz Liszt the composer and pianist (who died in Bayreuth) was celebrated there. This as explanation why three Calvinists are buried in a cheerfully glittery Catholic church. With a Voltaire quote, in Wilhelmine's case.

( Check it all out beneath the cut )

Wilhelmine's greatest contribution to Bayreuth the city remains the opera house, which has been classified as a World Heritage object by UNESCO in 2012. It was inaugurated on the occasion of her daughter's wedding, built within two years (which given the end result is amazingly short), and it's completely preserved in its original form. (Except for the curtain whom Napoleon's troops confiscated en route to Moscow in 1812.) Now, Wilhelmine had started to collect an ensemble of musicians and singers through the 1730s already and produced operas then, too, but there hadn't been a separate opera building until the wedding in 1748. It was used often until Wilhelmine's death, less often but still in the immediate years after, but after her widower had died (five years after Willhelmine) and Bayreuth was inherited by ghastly Uncle Christian, there were no more operas for years. By the time there was again a ruler with musical linterests, opera fashion had changed, big time, and the opera house was rarely used anymore, which is undoubtedly why it's so well preserved. It was the original reason why Richard Wagner came to Bayreuth. (The stage has a depth of 27 metres, which sounded great to Ring of the Nibelungs composing Wagner), but on second thought, he realised the Rokoko surroundings would clash with the Ring in a major fashion and got King Ludwig II to finance a new building instead. (Though he did produce both Tannhäuser and Lohengrin in this building before his own was finished.) These days, after the Wagner festival is over the one in Wilhelmine's opera house starts. (Well, in normal times it does.) Parts of the movie Farinelli were filmed here. The architects were Giuseppe und Carlo Galli da Bibiena who were inspired partly by the Hofburg in Vienna (!), and partly by Dresden, but had the ingenious and money saving idea to do it all in wood and painting.

( Behold the Baroque/Rokoko opera house to end them all )

Off to the "Hermitage" - the Eremitage, the countryside residence of the Margraves near Bayreuth. Though Wilhelmine didn't start it, she added the most famous contributions. The original builder was Margrave Georg Wilhelm. We haven't met him before, since he died in 1726, thereby making Wilhelmine's future father-in-law Margrave. Georg Wilhelm had good musical taste (he was Telemann's patron and produced no less than fifty operas in German (!), and loved to build, and these are the only good things you can say about him. He married 15 years old teenager and was ravingly jealous, so he locked her up at the Plassenburg (this was clearly the era for this). His only surviving daughter (no sons survived, which is why Bayreuth was inherited by Wilhelmine's father-in-law) produced illegitimate twins, whereupon she was locked up as well. And he ordered fifteen Sinti women hanged when they didn't leave the country after he ordered them. So: you wouldn't want to meet him. However, left some nice landscapes. To quote the official Eremitage website:

n 1715 Margrave Georg Wilhelm (reigned 1712-26) began extending the deer park laid out in 1664 to create a Hermitage, with a summer palace as the focal point. The four-winged complex by Johann David Räntz was originally surrounded on three sides by rows of linden trees which met overhead to form an enclosed corridor. In front of the Festival Hall was a parterre, followed by a cascade which ran down to the Red Main river.

Paths led across the wooded north slope to scattered huts built as retreats for the "hermits". The palace drive terminates at an artificial hill, the Parnassus and a pergola turning off at right angles to the drive leads on to the palace. The Hermitage was conceived by Margrave Georg Wilhelm as a setting where the margravial court could imitate the "simple life" of a hermit order.

( The Simple Life as imagined by Georg Wilhelm's architects: )

Now, after Wilhelmine's husband became Margrave 1735, he presented her with this bit of real estate. Wilhelmine believed in thinking big and wasn't deterred by a Franconian budget. The website again: The Old Palace was enlarged and a number of new garden areas were created with water and architectural features, such as the Lower Grotto and the Orangery (today the New Palace) with the Large Pond.

Wilhelmine used traditional elements of garden design such as boskets, pergolas and fountains for the enlarged park. With the free arrangement of the individual garden areas, the absence of a dominant, central axis and the independence of the various sections from one another she departed noticeably from baroque garden traditions. This, together with the artificial ruins, such as the Ruin Theatre and the Margrave's Hermitage, makes the Hermitage one of the most unusual gardens of the 18th century.

Sadly, due to Covid, one can't visit the inside of the Old Palace these days, and the New Palace's inner rooms were a victim of a WW II bomb and subsequent fire. They're currently used for exhibitions of modern art. However, the outside was restored completely.

( Where Apollo resides (also, Wilhelmine could make the water fountain work) )


Wandering through the park, you encounter fake ruins (same in Rheinsberg and Sanssouci).

( Folichon's tombstone and Voltaire's home away from home )

Frederician icons from Sachsens Glanz und Preussens Gloria, shamelessly pandering to dog lovers. (Also represented: Fredersdorf and the Flute.)









As ever, anyone who wants one can have it; credit would be nice.

And now, of course, for the crown jewel: Sanssouci! Here, too Mildred has already written a guide, which I urge you to read. As for my impressions: In general, how can you resist this:



More detailed observations to follow.

( Sanssouci: Main palace and immediate surroundings )

In order to go inside, you have to book a ticket well in advance, especially in Corona times. Then you get to see this:

( Sanssouci: Inside the Palace )

In a separate building: The painting gallery, which was always open to the public. The paintings Frederick collected first ended up in the Alte Gallery, then in Russia (well, some), then back in Berlin again. The current collection isn't quite what was there in his life time, but at least some of it, including some Rubens, Van Dycks and a Caravaggio:

( Picture this! )

The painting gallery is one one side of the main palace. On the other are the New Chambers, and in some distance, the wind mill.

( New Chambers and Mill )


The Neue Kammern, however, weren't enough re: guest rooms, what with Prussia now being a new European super power, and thus the last addendum within Frederick's life time: the New Palace, das Neue Palais. FW4 and later some of the Imperial family in the 19th century lived here during the summer, and Friedrich III., the big "what if?" of German Emperors, died here. Thus there is a liiiittle bit of non-Rococo, but mostly the Frederician Rococo has been preserved. Now, by the time the New Palace was built, Rococo was old fashioned and going out of style, and neo classicism started to arrive, big time. Not for our man Frederick. He was going to have his Rococo in all its playful opulent glory!

( Neues Palais: Rococo Finale )

Not far from the Neues Palais is the "Temple of Friendship", which Fritz built in memory of his sister Wilhelmine ten years after her death.

( Temple of Friendship )

So remember everyone adoring the "Chinese" style? This usually, if you could afford it, led to "Chinese" tea houses. If you are Fritz, your Chinese Tea house looks like this:

( Understatement is for wusses )

On to Part II. Frederick the Great said as early as the Seven Years War, and several times thereafter, that the only place where he'd been truly happy had been Rheinsberg, the namesake of our community. He was there for only four years (1736 to 1740). Later, he gave it to his brother Heinrich, who lived there for nearly half a century. When Fontane visited in the 1850s and 1860s, he was a bit frustrated that Heinrich by then was nearly forgotten, and the four years of Fritz were all anyone talked about, but I'm happy to report this is no longer the case. Lots of Heinrich stories provided by the audio guide and the inscriptions, though on the downside, the real life castellans are trying to convince you of Frederick's heterosexuality and swear he had a romance with a local Rheinsberg girl named Sabine. (In addition to being a married man, of course; this was the only time Frederick and his wife Elisabeth Christine truly lived together.) Never you mind, though: Rheinsberg!



( Palace of Dreams, Obelisk of Fraternal Revenge )


Now, not far away from Rheinsberg are the estates given to two boyfriends of Hohenzollern princes with very different fates. Say about Fritz what you want, but his taste in long term boyfriends was A plus, whereas Heinrich invariably, with only one or two exceptions, ended up with charismatic money spending jerks. None spent more money than Kaphengst, until at last according to legend Fritz told Heinrich in unprintable language to kick him out of Rheinsberg. Heinrich did this via setting him up with Meseberg, a beautiful palace in which today the Federal Republic of Germany puts its guests of state when they visit for more than a few hours. Meseberg is near enough so Heinrich could visit easily, but Kaphengst managed to run it down and get into debts again, at which point Heinrich had to sell his collection of paintings to Catherine the Great in order to bail him out, though he did call it quits then. Considering the currentn day use and the needs of top security, you can't visit Meseberg from the outside, but you can have a look (and conclude Kaphengst must have been spectacular in bed):

( Meseberg the Beautiful )

Meanwhile, the guy who has the claim of having been Frederick the Great's most long term partner, Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf, starting out as his valet, got the much more small scale estate of Zernikow as soon as Frederick ascended to the throne in 1740, but he made it florish, being the extremely competent organizer and business man he was.

( Competence is sexy, and thus so is Zernikow )


And thus it's time to head back from the province to the capital in this pic spam. On the Part III!