Amalie zu Solms-Braunfels
Countess Amalie zu Solms-Braunfels (born August 31, 1602 at Braunfels Castle in Braunfels , † September 8, 1675 in The Hague ) from the Count family of Solms came to The Hague as the lady-in-waiting of the Countess Palatine Electress Elisabeth von der Pfalz . She became Princess of Orange and Countess of Nassau in 1625 through marriage to the Dutch governor Friedrich Heinrich of Orange .
Life
Amalie was the fourth daughter of Count Johann Albrecht I. zu Solms-Braunfels (1563-1623) and his first wife, Countess Agnes zu Sayn-Wittgenstein (1568-1617), daughter of Count Ludwig I and Countess Elisabeth zu Solms-Laubach . Her paternal grandparents were Count Conrad zu Solms-Braunfels and Countess Elisabeth von Nassau-Dillenburg .
In the summer of 1619 Countess Amalie came to the Heidelberg court and was appointed lady-in-waiting to the Electress of the Palatinate and later Queen of the Winter , Elisabeth Stuart . After their escape from Prague , Countess Amalie came to The Hague with the royal family in the spring of 1621. Later on, Amalie zu Solms-Braunfels met Prince Friedrich Heinrich of Orange, a cousin of her father, at a ball in honor of the Winter Queen .
On April 4, 1625, Countess Amalie married Prince Friedrich Heinrich (1584–1647), the youngest son of the governor William I of Orange and his fourth wife of the French Huguenot Louise de Coligny . Nine children emerged from the mutual relationship:
- Wilhelm II. (1626–1650)
- Louise Henriette (1627–1667) ⚭ 1646 Elector Friedrich Wilhelm of Brandenburg (1620–1688)
- Henriette Amalia (* / † 1628)
- Elisabeth (* / † 1630)
- Isabella Charlotte (1632-1642)
- Albertine Agnes (1634–1696) ⚭ 1652 Prince Wilhelm Friedrich von Nassau-Dietz (1613–1664), governor of Friesland-Groningen
- Henriette Catharina (1637–1708) ⚭ 1659 Prince Johann Georg II of Anhalt-Dessau (1627–1693)
- Heinrich Ludwig (* / † 1639)
- Marie Henrietta (1642–1688) ⚭ 1666 Count Palatine Ludwig Heinrich von Simmern (1640–1674), grandson of Friedrich IV.
Passionate and domineering, but politically gifted, Princess Amalie of Orange furnished the court in The Hague with royal splendor and turned it into a European center of the arts. She also determined the marriage policy for her children, Prince Wilhelm II and his four sisters, whose inclinations had to be subdued. As a widow, she pursued a policy directed against her son. After his untimely death she fought to restore lost rights for her grandson Wilhelm III . His chairmanship of the Council of State and his appointment as general captain and inheritor in 1672 were the culmination of all their efforts. In 1689 he ascended the Anglo-Scottish throne, another grandson as Friedrich I ascended the Prussian throne in 1701.
Art orders
Amalie von Solms had got to know an art of quasi royal style at the Heidelberger Hof and throughout her life used exquisite art commissions to represent her rank. She paid particular attention to the innovations in the Parisian court art, which she implemented one after the other in various palaces and castles in her apartments.
From 1625 the governor couple took their main residence in the Binnenhof in The Hague , which had been extended by a new wing by builders from Paris, and which was enlarged again in 1632 with a short wing.
As early as 1621, about 10 km southwest of The Hague, the construction of the (no longer preserved) Huis Honselaarsdijk country palace , which was built until 1647, began. In strict symmetry, the complex combined a three-wing scheme of the central castle with a wide garden. In the architecture, suggestions from the publications of the French architect Jacques I. Androuet du Cerceau , which appeared mainly in the 1570s, were processed, in which the most famous castles in France were to be studied.
1633–1636, the palace and garden of Huis ter Nieuwburg in Rijswijk , also in the immediate vicinity of The Hague, were built.
In 1645, in the north-east of The Hague, the Huis ten Bosch pleasure palace began, which Amalie converted into a mausoleum and memorial building after the death of her husband in 1647. A key model here was the Palais du Luxembourg, built by Maria de 'Medici between 1615 and 1620, with its extensive range of paintings that glorified the client.
In all of these buildings, Amalie was primarily concerned with interior design. Here, based on the latest Parisian fashion represented by Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet and their salon, the idea of a unified and concentrated spatial impression with a dominant color scheme was implemented. The embossed leather wallpapers painted in color on a gold background were also new . In the 1630s, these wall decorations were supplemented by another courtly fashion of wall design. Now rooms were divided into fields by floor-to-ceiling wooden panels, into which paintings with colored grotesques, landscape views or seascapes were embedded.
The type of bed in a wall niche, the alcove , with a balustrade in front was also adopted from Paris . In this way, both social distance could be established and the intimate space of the alcove made accessible as a sign of special appreciation by the lady of the house. Around 1640 the bed with a balustrade was introduced in the Binnenhof. In 1641 it received a new balustrade with East Asian lacquer work.
At that time the Netherlands was the main trading center for imports from East Asia. Porcelain goods from China were particularly valued. Amalie began to concentrate such porcelains as prestigious collection items in special rooms. Initially arranged with natural objects in the manner of a chamber of desires and wonders, a gallery was built in the Binnenhof in 1634, dominated by porcelain vessels. The (lost) space is one of the first examples of chinoise space concepts in Europe.
Another technique imported from East Asia was lacquer painting . In the 1660s, Amalie had the wall paneling of a cabinet made from lacquer boxes in Huis ten Bosch. In the period that followed, the new room types of the porcelain cabinet and lacquer cabinet were to spread across Europe as manifestations of enthusiasm for China and prestigious architecture.
literature
- Harry Gerber: Amalie, Princess of Orange. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 238 f. ( Digitized version ).
- Arthur Kleinschmidt : Amalie von Oranien, née Countess zu Solms-Braunfels. A picture of life . Johannes Räde, Berlin 1905 (with pedigree).
- Pieter Lodewijk Muller : Amalie of Orange . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 34, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1892, pp. 572-575.
- Uwe Schögl (Red.): Orange. 500 years of portraits of a dynasty from the portrait collection of the Austrian National Library, Vienna and the Dutch Royal Collection The Hague. (Exhibition from February 1 to March 19, 2002, Camineum of the Austrian National Library, Vienna). Austrian National Library et al., Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-01-000028-6 , pp. 67–69.
Web links
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Solms-Braunfels, Amalie zu |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Amalie of Orange |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Court lady; by marriage to the Princess of Orange and the Countess of Nassau |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 31, 1602 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Braunfels Castle , Braunfels |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 8, 1675 |
| Place of death | The hague |