Caroline von Keyserling

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Count Heinrich von Keyserling and Countess Caroline

Countess Caroline Charlotte Amalie von Keyserlingk , own spelling Keyserling (born December 2, 1727 in Königsberg (Prussia) ; † August 24, 1791 ibid) was an artist and socialite in the Age of Enlightenment . With her husband, she ran the famous Keyserlings' court of muses in Königsberg . Gifted and open to all things beautiful, Caroline was for Johann Friedrich Reichardt “a magnificent, royal woman” , for Immanuel Kant “the adornment of her sex” .

Life

Caroline was the daughter of Erbtruchseß Karl Ludwig Truchseß von Waldburg and his wife Sophie Charlotte born. Countess von Wylich and Lottum . In 1744, Caroline married Graf Gebhardt Johann von Keyserlingk (1699–1761) from Courland . With the instruction of their two sons they commissioned the pioneer of the Enlightenment, Immanuel Kant, with whom they shared mutual admiration throughout their life. During the Seven Years' War the Truchsessisches Gut Capustigall near Königsberg became a center of society. Russian officers were among the guests . The Russian General Fermor and his successor as governor, Lieutenant General Nikolaus Friedrich von Korff , were among Caroline's admirers. In 1761 her husband died, to whom Friedrich II. (Prussia) had given the title of Count in 1744 . When the peace of Hubertusburg was being negotiated, Caroline married a nephew of her husband in 1763, the also widowed Count Heinrich von Keyserling . The marriage with Heinrich remained childless.

enlightenment

Caroline's Kant

As a young woman, Caroline Gottscheds translated First Reasons of All World Wisdom into French . In gratitude, he dedicated the 6th edition of the work (1756) to her. She wrote anonymous articles for magazines . Christian Jakob Kraus , for whom Kant had secured a position as court master in the Keyserling house in 1777 , praised her well-readiness in (French) literature and natural sciences .

Reichardt lived with his family on the Keyserlings property. He taught Caroline how to play the lute . She played and sang with him and his son at evening music , which Friedrich Wilhelm II (Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck) was a frequent guest. Caroline was extremely talented as a painter and draftsman . She painted historical scenes and sacred objects in miniature and copied pictures of Nicolaas Berghem , Adriaen van der Werff and others in pastel . Johann III Bernoulli admired her large collection of successful portraits of well-known personalities. She had portrayed him too. In his short travel descriptions he writes about her: “According to the judgment of those in the know, she draws and paints excellently both in pastel and with oil and water colors; also engraves in copper. ” The archives of Schloss Rautenburg , Niederung district , contained two folders with 98 and 83 pencil drawings and half-length portraits of personalities. The sheets on yellowish paper are 25 × 35.5 cm in size, some tinted with red pencil, glued on gray-blue sheets and all undated. 83 pictures are known by name, including Frederic Guillaume Prince de Prusse , Guillaume Prince de Bronswic , Professeur Kant , Stanislas l Auguste, Roi de Pologne . Also listed at Mühlpfordt are Caroline's first husband Gebhardt von Keyserling, Prince Heinrich, Johann Friedrich Domhardt , Countess Dohna-Lauck, the Duchess of Courland, the Duchess of Weimar, two Counts Dönhoff, the War Minister Friedrich von der Groeben , the Chancellor Baron von Korff , the hussar general von Lossow and the later Königsberg governor von Stutterheim . Only the picture of the young Kant is known.

At the suggestion of Daniel Chodowiecki , Caroline von Keyserling became an honorary member of the Royal Prussian Academy of Arts and Mechanical Sciences on June 8, 1786 .

"Mourned by high and low," she died four years after her second husband at the age of 64 of "biliary disease". Like its two spouses, she was in the Church of Lappienen in the lowland buried. Pastor Georg Heinrich Leo quoted the inscription on the coffin lid in his funeral speech ( printed by Johann Heinrich Hartung ): "It was the joy of those who knew you and enjoys the reward of good deeds with which your whole life was adorned."

Keyserlings' court of muses

Caroline's first husband Gebhardt bought the baroque palace on the Vorderroßgarten in Königsberg in 1755 from Count Albrecht Ernst von Schlieben . It had previously belonged to the Chamberlain, Count of Solms and Tecklenburg. Caroline's second husband Heinrich bought the neighboring properties and began expanding the entire complex. He had the picturesque peninsula filled up in the Königsberg castle pond. In the park he built guest pavilions and a “Comoedien-Haus” , a building for theater performances. He filled the palace “with precious furniture, pictures, books and chinoiserie in French taste” . The Countess's apartment was "also a splendid artist's studio" . Precious carriages , lackeys in splendid liveries , Moors and outlaws offered the image of a princely court. Balls , evening parties , lunch tables, garden parties and evening music were the order of the day. Since 1769 the Keyserlings (with the exception of the years 1774/75) lived permanently in the palace.

The natal and intellectual aristocracy from the Kingdom of Prussia and the Baltic States met there . Princely visitors were the Hereditary Prince of Hesse-Kassel , the Countess of Hesse-Darmstadt , the Russian Grand Duke Paul Petrowitsch and in 1780 the Prince of Prussia, who later became King Friedrich Wilhelm II. The civic guests included Hamann , von Hippel , Kraus , Mangelsdorf , the organist Richter and the war councilor Scheffner . As a permanent guest of honor , Kant was the spiritual center of the house.

"This house is the crown of all the nobility, differs from all the others in hospitality, charity, taste."

- Johann Georg Hamann

Re-use of the palace

After Caroline's older stepson Carl Philipp Anton died early, the younger brother Albrecht Johann Otto sold the palace to the Mechanicus Loyal in 1796 for 20,000 thalers. Three years later, the bar director Otto Ludwig Krüger bought it for 24,000 thalers. In 1809 it came back into noble hands when Friedrich Wilhelm III. (Prussia) bought it as a summer palace for the Crown Prince for 32,000 thalers. In 1830 it became the official residence of the commanding general .

A part of the garden was assigned to the new town hall (Königsberg) in 1908 in order to allow access from the castle pond. So "in the first half of the 20th century the center of the musical Königsberg coincided spatially with the Königsberg Musenhof of the 18th century" .

literature

  • Bogislav von Archenholz: The abandoned castles. A book from the great families of the German East . Frankfurt am Main, Berlin 1967
  • Herbert Meinhard Mühlpfordt : Königsberg life in the Rococo. Important contemporaries of Kant . Writings of the JG Herder-Bibliothek Siegerland, Vol. 7, Siegen 1981
  • Gotthilf Sebastian Rötger (ed.): Nekrolog for Friends of German Literature , vol. L. 1791
  • Helga Meise: The Almanach domestique (1782) of Caroline von Keyserling. A media experiment . In: S. Thomas Rahn / Hole Rößler (eds.): Media Fantasy and Media Reflection in the Early Modern Age. Festschrift for Jörg Jochen Berns, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 2018 (Wolfenbütteler Forschungen; 157), ISBN 978-3-447-11139-3 , pp. 323-344.

Web links

References and comments

  1. ^ Biography of Keyserling (k), Charlotte Caroline Amalie Countess von - Kulturportal West-Ost
  2. ↑ Heinrich's father, Hermann Karl von Keyserling, commissioned Bach's Goldberg Variations .
  3. ^ Johann III Bernoulli : Collection of short travelogues , 18 volumes. Berlin 1781–1878
  4. ^ Rautenburg
  5. ↑ a b c H. M. Mühlpfordt, p. 20 f.
  6. ^ Biography of Keyserling (k), Charlotte Caroline Amalie Countess von - Kulturportal West-Ost
  7. ↑ In the same year Kant received his doctorate and Königsberg celebrated its 500th anniversary
  8. ^ Johann Ludwig Schwarz: Memories from the life of a businessman, statesman, poet and humorist . Leipzig 1828, p. 179
  9. ↑ a b Keyserling (k), Charlotte Caroline Amalie Countess of . In: East German Biography (Kulturportal West-Ost)
  10. ^ Prussian State Archives Königsberg , Budget Minister . 71, 9
  11. ^ Hermann Güttler: Königsbergs music culture in the 18th century . Koenigsberg 1925
personal data
SURNAME Keyserling, Caroline von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keyserling, Countess Caroline Amalie von; Keyserlingk, Countess Caroline Amalie von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German artist and socialite
DATE OF BIRTH December 2, 1727
PLACE OF BIRTH Koenigsberg i. Pr.
DATE OF DEATH August 24, 1791
Place of death Koenigsberg i. Pr.