Hang around me and
you'll get your picture taken
if we go somewhere fun.
Friday, October 6, 2023
House of Bling
It's modestly called the "Residenz" but I easily achieved more than my daily step count exploring the premises of Germany's largest city palace. This is one of the few exterior ornamentations to have survived the 1944 carpet bombing of Munich.
My visit began in the Treasury which gathers the most precious objets d'art commissioned or collected by the House of Wittelsbach, a dynasty that ruled Bavaria for nearly 750 years and occupied the Residenz for five centuries. These tchotchkes were created from crystal, gold, coral and rhinoceros horn.
After the destruction of World War II, ordinary Bavarians united to gather shells from their freshwater lakes to reconstruct a magnificently peculiar Renaissance-era grotto. It's as if they found Legos underwater!
But the real "WOW" moment awaits visitors just around the corner in the Antiquarium, another Renaissance-era room, the largest in the Residenz. A Wittelsbach duke--there were no kings in Bavaria until the early 19th century--built it to house his classical art collection.
The paintings on the ceiling depict allegories of fame and the virtues, but this one looks like vanity to me.
I had to take an hour-long break to re-charge my phone after a delirious visit to the BMW Museum earlier in the day, using an electrical outlet near the very grand Yellow Staircase built by King Ludwig I as the entrance to the royal apartments. I'm flanked by Justice and Perseverance.
The Order comes with a lot of bling on display in the Treasury.
Before there were kings, Bavarian dukes helped elect the Holy Roman Emperor, a millennium-long chapter of European history that ended with the Napoleonic Wars, and one that I'm only beginning to understand. These dukes were called Electors and when Duke Maximilian III Joseph, the last Wittelsbach died childless from smallpox in 1777, it ignited the small-bore War of Bavarian Succession. The Austrian Habsburg dynasty next door--which then occupied the Holy Roman Emperor throne--wanted to grab Bavaria to ensure its continued power but either the duke's widow or sister secretly enlisted the aid of Frederick the Great, the King of Prussia, to protect it. Long story short: when the imperial dust settled, another elector of the Holy Roman Empire (there were seven, most of them from other parts of what now is Germany), became the first King of Bavaria. Got that?
The Bavarian electors slept in an entirely separate wing than the kings to come.
The Residenz is so large that after every few rooms--there are 130--a sign points to "exit" or "longer tour this way." I kept walking, mouth agape at the furnishings and finger poised to capture the most exquisite. Although the Nazis had the foresight to remove many of the portable items for safekeeping prior to the bombing, much the Residenz has been re-created using their extensive photographic records of the palace. Props to the artisans for their incredible restoration work!
Persian Tapestry Bird (1641-42)
Frescoes, commissioned by King Ludwig I, depict Italian cities and landscapes in the All Saints Corridor. A patron of the arts so impassioned that he gave up the crown for his mistress, the actress Lola Montez, in 1848. Ludwig wrote lines of verse to accompany each of the scenes, printed beneath them. According to Google Translate, this one reads "Near Messina, the Scylla rise and the Charybdis; when one danger frees themselves, the other person falls." I wonder if he was thinking of the impact of his abdication on his wife at the time?
French Tapestry Detail (after 1762)
Bedroom, Court Garden Rooms and Charlotte Chambers
Bed Detail
Sconce, Court Garden Rooms and Charlotte Chambers
Music Room, Court Garden Rooms and Charlotte Chambers
Backgammon Set, Room of Justice, Trier Rooms
Emperor's Staircase
Bavarian Coat of Arms, Inlaid Wood, Emperor's Hall
Marble Detail, Entrance to Four White Horses Hall
Ceiling, Room of the Seasons, Stone Rooms
Cupid, Stone Rooms
Tapestry Detail, Stone Rooms
Detail, Court Chapel
Interior, Ornate Chapel
Scagliola (imitation marble) Wall, Ornate Chapel
German Reliquary (1625-50), Ornate Chapel
Deer Etching, Ornate Chapel
Electors often campaigned to become Holy Roman Emperor themselves. Karl Albrecht began adding the Ornate Rooms to the Residenz in 1726 to persuade other electors that he had the right kind of Baroque crib for diplomacy and ceremonial occasions. His architectural strategy worked: after three centuries of Holy Roman Emperors from the Habsburg dynasty, Charles VII (he and Karl were the same person) hailed from Team Wittelsbach.
Audience Chambers, Ornate Rooms
Here's where they partied.
Mirror & Hearth, Green Gallery, Ornate Rooms
Red Canopy Bed, Cabinet of Mirrors
Figurines & Clock, Cabinet of Mirrors
Cabinet of Miniatures
Queen Therese, the wife of King Ludwig I, presided in this room. She was an able administrator in her husband's absence and sympathy derived from his philandering contributed both to her popularity and his eventual abdication.
Queen's Throne Room, King's Tract
King's Study/Living Room, King's Tract
Ludwig decorated his study with busts of the two men he most admired: Frederick the Great and Julius Caesar.
Frederick the Great, King's Study/Living Room, King's Tract
Scorched porcelain paintings in an exhibit called "Burned Beauty"remain the only on-site evidence of World War II's destruction inside the Residenz. King Ludwig I had them copied from paintings of pretty women because he recognized how enamel-painted vases had helped preserve Greek culture.
He was so committed to German culture that he had a series of rooms built to illustrate the Nibelungenlied, an anonymous epic poem from 1200. As soon as they were completed he opened the Nibelungen Halls to the public.
It's said that Richard Wagner may have been inspired to compose the Ring Cycle as a result, with significant patronage from King Ludwig's grandson, the Mad King of Bavaria. Lots more to come about HIM. He's the reason I made this trip!
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