Sanspareil rock garden
The rock garden Sanspareil ( French sans pareil [ sɑ̃paˈʀɛj ], without equal ') is an English landscape garden created between 1744 and 1748 in the Upper Franconian community of Wonsees in the district of Kulmbach .
The garden includes the existing rock structure of the Franconian Jura as well as the medieval Zwernitz castle as accessories in the garden concept, which Margrave Friedrich von Bayreuth began and his wife Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth completed according to their ideas.
The entire ensemble is a listed building. The garden is designated as Geotope 477R008 by the Bavarian State Office for the Environment . See also the list of geotopes in the district of Kulmbach .
Geographical location
The Sanspareil rock garden is located in the district of Wonsees in the Franconian Switzerland , the northern part of the Franconian Alb . It is located near the city of Bayreuth , but belongs to the district of Kulmbach. The entrance area to the rock garden is below Zwernitz Castle . The garden, village and castle can be reached via the Schirradorf junction (No. 21) of the A 70 to the north .
Access
The rock garden is freely accessible all year round. The exhibition rooms of Zwernitz Castle and the museum in the Morgenländisches Bau can be visited from April to October for a fee. The castle café in the kitchen is also open from April to October. A separate entrance fee is charged for the summer performances in the ruin theater .
Building history
The time before construction began in 1744
In documents from 1434, a beech grove below Zwernitz Castle is mentioned for the first time under the name Han zu Zwernitz . The place Sanspareil was called Zwernitz until 1746. In 1604 the humanist Friedrich Taubmann, born in Wonsees, praised the grove for its beauty and describes it in detail in his work Schediasmata poetica . François de Salignac de La Mothe Fénelon wrote 1694-1696 the adventure, travel and educational novel Les Aventures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse , which was published in German in 1733 under the title The Strange Events of Telemach . The novel, which enjoyed great popularity in court circles at that time, ten years later formed the basis for the program of the Sanspareil landscape garden.
Construction and expansion 1744–1796
In the spring of 1744, by order of Margrave Friedrich von Bayreuth, work began on the complex according to plans by the garden architect Joseph Saint-Pierre . Margravine Wilhelmine moved into Zwernitz Castle in April of the same year. On April 17th, the castle administrator confirmed the receipt of furniture from the Bayreuth Castle, including beds for the margrave couple. Wilhelmine supervised the further execution of the construction work. She brought in numerous suggestions of her own, especially for the garden program based on the novel by Fénelon. At the end of 1744, the speakers' house , the wooden pile house and the Belvedere were completed. In the following year, construction work began on the oriental building , the burgrave house , the margrave house and the kitchen, with the court plasterer Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi playing a key role . Work on the ruins and grotto theater followed in 1746, based on the model of the Bayreuth ruin theater .
In 1746 the village and grove of Zwernitz were given the name Sanspareil . Two years later, all work on the garden and the permanent structures were completed and the system could be considered completed with the completion of the stucco work in the hall of the Oriental building . Attempts to incorporate the water arts , which were obligatory in gardening at the time , failed.
The first publications on the Sanspareil garden appeared in 1748 and 1749. Also in 1749 Johannes Thomas Köppel published the first series of five engravings with motifs from the garden. The last Margrave Alexander von Ansbach-Bayreuth had some staffages added from 1769 to 1791. J. C. Bechstatt, Fürstlich Hessischer Oberjäger, drew the first complete plan of the entire complex in September 1796. Travel writers praised the Sanspareil landscape garden, for example Johann Michael Füssel in 1787 and Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke in 1796 .
Decay and Restoration
In 1810 the castle and garden came to the Kingdom of Bavaria together with the Bayreuth Margraviate . First the staffages in the rock garden fell into disrepair, then the permanent structures too. In 1830 lightning threw the Aeolus temple from the rocky summit and the complex was no longer allowed to be entered by order of King Ludwig I. In 1832 the kitchen , the wooden dance hall and the remaining iron and sheet metal works of the Aeolus temple were sold for private collection of building materials. 1835 was broken due to disrepair, the Belvedere , and in 1839 the Burggrafen- and the Margrave House as well as the advisory , the woodpile - and Diane house . The straw house had already disappeared by that time.
In 1942, the castle and garden were subordinated to the Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, Gardens and Lakes , which first repaired the garden in 1951 and then also the Oriental building and finally handed it over to the public in 1956. Two years ago appeared the first Official Guides Sanspareil Rock Garden and Castle Zwernitz of Erich Bachmann , who this type of gardens on the example of the landscape garden Sanspareil as a separate type of rock garden called. This term has been recognized by the specialist literature.
Garden history classification
The beech grove east of Zwernitz Castle is a special case not only because of the numerous formations of limestone cliffs , but also because of the beech population. Beeches on northern slopes in the arid Franconian Jura can only grow over the long term under special conditions.
The name “ grove” , which has been handed down since the Middle Ages, indicates that apart from rhythmic fluctuations in growth, it has remained unchanged for centuries. At the northern edge of the grove there is also a stand of spruce that already appears in old descriptions of the 18th century: " The strongest spruce stood slim and noble in this spruce hall and barely let the midday sun in ". Rowan, chestnut, linden and fruit trees grew on the ground floor of the entrance quarter ; At the mentor's grotto there were leg willows and the velvet Kaudelweide , the dance hall was surrounded by a double circle of linden and wild chestnut trees, and the calypso grotto was shaded by silver birch, maple and spruce . Buckberry bushes crowned the rocky peaks . These species were originally present in the landscape. What is certain is that the trees were thinned to make the staffage on the rocks visible from afar. This is evident from the engravings from 1748 and 1793.
From the start, Margravine Wilhelmine staged her landscape garden against the architecture of the Baroque and Rococo gardens, which were usually regularly structured around the extended main axis of a castle or other building. She was enthusiastic in a letter to her brother Frederick the Great on September 15, 1749 : “ The location of the place [...] is unique. The buildings listed there are of strange taste. Nature itself was the builder ”. The main object of the garden was not lively nature, but primarily a natural rock landscape with stone formations. Even for the English landscape garden , the natural requirements were of secondary importance. What was not there was recreated: cascades, panoramic mountains, devil's gorges, visual axes and accentuated by staffages: here a monopteros , there a little Chinese temple.
In the religious sculpture garden created between 1717 and 1732 by the sculptor Matthias Bernhard Braun , called Bethlém , in Stangendorf near Kuskus in the Giant Mountains and earlier in the rock gardens near the Italian towns of Sciacca , Bomarzo and Pitigliano , which were created in the second half of the 16th century the natural rock merely as a plastic material and transformed the rocks into human and animal images and shapes or viewing terraces. In Sanspareil, on the other hand, they were first valued for their natural beauty and their poetic mood and were left almost unchanged.
Without the English landscape gardens, which slowly developed around 1720, the Sanspareil rock garden would not exist. As early as 1685, the well -traveled English diplomat Sir William Temple found the East Asian garden art with its bizarre rock formations more beautiful than the geometric gardens of Europe. A little later, missionaries described Sinese mountains of pleasure made by art and fetching in engravings and in travel descriptions .
The Paines Hill garden in Surrey , which was laid out around 1735, came very close to the idea of Margravine Wilhelmine to create a literary program that incorporates natural landscape forms such as a play in front of the garden viewer, only that it is about artificial rock and grotto formations after one still unbroken tradition from the baroque gardens. In Sanspareil the rocks were real and were left in their shapes. That this kind of landscape garden itself had in 1825 lost none of its fascination is the utterance occupied by Johann Friedrich Kind , the librettist of Freischütz , on passing through the rock garden Sanspareil him " highest durchzitterten showers delight ".
iconography
In the pseudo-historical and at the same time utopian novel by François Fénelon, the author leads the young Ulysses son Télémaque ( Telemach ) and his teacher mentor , actually the goddess Athena in the form of an old man, through various ancient states, mostly through her fault of flatterers and false ones Rulers surrounded by advisors are facing the decline of their existence. But Fénelon shows in a prime case how these problems can be solved thanks to the advice of Mentor through peaceful reconciliation with neighbors and through reforms that stimulate growth, in particular by promoting agriculture and suppressing the production of luxury goods.
Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth chose this story to design the program of her landscape garden Sanspareil (the name Felsengarten was first coined in 1951) in order to make the stations of the Telemach clear for the walker along the winding paths through the natural rock groups. Although today's rock garden has only a few of the many staffages that support the illusory world of Fénelon, Wilhelmine's iconographic program is still legible.
The play, which is performed in and with the staffage, tells of Telemach's search for his father Odysseus. Accompanied by the wise mentor, he ends up after several adventures on the island of Ogygia , on which Odysseus had already spent seven years on his wanderings. Like his father before, the nymph Kalypso welcomes him hospitably and falls in love with him. Mentor finally throws himself into the sea with Telemachus to escape the jealousy of Calypso. A passing ship picks up the two and brings them back to their homeland, on the island of Ithaca , after further experiences .
Wilhelmine transformed the Zwernitz'schen beech grove into the island of Ogygia by giving the landscape a literary program with staffages. This thought was way ahead of its time. It was not until decades later that it became common property in the romantic landscape parks. Her idea of including the medieval Zwernitz Castle as a “natural” ruin architecture in the overall picture was only taken up almost a century later in continental Europe.
The bizarre limestone cliffs of Sanspareil served as the ideal backdrop for a gigantic chinoiserie . A whole landscape was transferred into the empire of Confucius , so admired in the Baroque , into the utopian ideal of beauty. The ancient drama begins directly behind the Morgenländisches Bau : over a dozen mythological scenes were carved out of the existing rocks. Following the winding path, the individual stations of the Telemach adventure are shown.
The rock garden and its accessories
The approximately 13 hectare rock garden extends from the north side of Zwernitz Castle 1330 meters to the east in an elongated beech grove, the north-south extension of which is a maximum of 200 meters. 39 limestone cliffs of different heights and groups are in the garden area. They are connected by a total of 17.5 kilometers of footpaths. Most of the rocks were used as natural accessories in the design of the landscape garden in 1744, some were hewn and still others formed bases for engineering structures, which disappeared at the latest by the beginning of the 20th century due to decay or natural events. Some of the rocks conceal natural grottos or smaller caves, others are so close together that they only allow crevice-like passages.
Ice cellar and chicken hole
Below the northern flank of Zwernitz Castle, a dark, cellar-like corridor emerges from the natural rock. Coming from the chapel courtyard of the castle, it leads through the northwestern foothills of the rock garden. A little further down the valley from the former outer ring of the outer bailey are two groups of rocks, first the ice cellar , a narrow pass-like shaft with a cave-like depression, and then the chicken hole , a rock with holes through which the footpath used to pass and which now leads around it. Immediately south of the Hühnerloch begins the representative entrance area of the garden on the so-called parterre .
ground floor
Originally four buildings were grouped around an approximately 20 by 15 meter recessed level surface, the ground floor , starting with the kitchen in front of the west and the east building on the east. The long sides of the rectangle flanked the margrave and burgrave houses , both of which disappeared from the ensemble in 1839. The ground floor is the only small part of the rock garden that was regularly laid out geometrically in the then traditional type of architectural gardens. The inner square, which is lined with colored sand and planted with curved box- hacks, is surrounded by pyramid trees. Margrave Alexander von Ansbach-Bayreuth only initiated the planting of flower beds in the middle of the parterre around 1785 . This Rococo element was intended to make the contradiction to the surrounding landscape garden clearly stand out. Shortly after the border was planted, however, the sunken central section with its broderies was filled in before 1793 in order to obtain a level lawn. The pyramid trees in pots were replaced by planted tier trees. In 1984 the complex was reconstructed based on an engraving by J. T. Köppel from 1748.
Speaker house
The core area of the rock grove begins immediately behind the Morgenländisches Bau . The Referentenhaus , a half-timbered building with quarry stone facing that could be heated by an open chimney , stood on the first cliff . Margrave Friedrich von Bayreuth occasionally did government business there.
Log house
On the summit of the next rock, which was given the romantic name Rock of Love at the end of the 18th century , a little house stood between the floating peaks of birch and beech trees , the outer cladding of which looked like a pile of wood. The log house , the interior walls of which were decorated with landscapes in a kind of mosaic of moss and colored stones, had a shingle roof. The rock of love , which drops off to the north with a steep wall, stands in the middle of some other rock towers.
Umbrella and straw house
About 70 meters from the ground floor in a south-easterly direction there is an overhanging rock with a stone bench, the umbrella . From there extends a wide meadow, at the edge of which the straw house originally stood, a half-timbered building clad with bark , the corners of which were made of raw tuff stones . An open roof truss with a widely overhanging thatched roof, which formed a peristyle-like corridor, rested on unsurfaced tree trunks . The straw house was the favorite stay of Duchess Elisabeth Friederike Sophie von Brandenburg-Bayreuth , the daughter of Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth, who in turn preferred to retreat to the mentor's grotto .
Green table and mentor grotto
Not far to the northeast of the umbrella , eight rocks form a rondelle, which is described as the most scenic part of the rock garden: Completely surrounded by mountains and rocks, a natural rock theater is formed in gruesome dark groups , in which some grottos, overhangs and bottlenecks alternate. The strongest overhang is the mentor's grotto (named after Odysseus' shipbuilder and Telemach's teacher) and in front of it the green table , the top of which surrounds a tree trunk in the manner of a tree arbor.
Diana grotto
A gorge of overhanging rocks follows immediately south of the Green Table , which form the Diana Grotto . Originally, the grotto was decorated with a naturalistic, colorful sculptural group consisting of the goddess Artemis (Roman Diana ) armed with a bow and arrows and three nymphs with hunting dogs. On the rock above the grotto stood the Dianenhäuschen , another "natural" decoration made of stones, bark and the like in the form of a green moss hut, which was clad on the outside with tuff and had a shingle roof.
Volcanic Cave and Bear Hole
The volcanic cave , the largest and most spacious of all grottos in the rock garden , is located to the east of it, also bordering the circular rock. A painting by the Bayreuth court painter Wilhelm Wunder once adorned the back wall of this mighty cave. It showed three cyclops who help Hephaestus (Roman Vulcan ) to forge thunderbolts for Zeus . In this group of rocks there is another, smaller cave, called the Bear Hole . A statue of Penelope originally stood above her .
Belvedere
The central staffages of the mythological scenery around Odysseus and his son Telemach were on the Belvedere rock. On top of it, a good 15 meters above the ground, stood the Belvedere , a pleasure house in the form of an octagonal pavilion, framed by two other cylindrical buildings. All were made of half-timbering lined with quarry stone. They had canopies made of tinplate . The rock lives up to its name Belvedere (beautiful view), even if the house no longer exists. From here you have a wide panoramic view of Franconian Switzerland to the Fichtel Mountains .
Calypso grotto
At the foot of the Belvedere rock , next to the small siren grotto, there is the much larger calypso grotto and, to the south, the only remaining staffage, the ruins and grotto theater . Contemporary descriptions mention a life-size and colorful group of statues set up in the grotto. In addition to calypso, who is served refreshments by a nymph, Telemachus kneeling in front of her was also shown. Due to its location directly in front of the orchestra pit of the ruin theater and its size, the calypso grotto could be used as a rainproof auditorium.
Sibylle and Aeolus grotto
In Aeolusfelsen, the easternmost rocks in the garden of Sanspareil, are the Sibyllen- and Aeolusgrotte . Originally stood in the Sybil's Cave statues of Sibylle , in front of a temple standing, and Telemachus, the straight his impending fate is predicted. Margrave Carl Alexander von Ansbach-Bayreuth had the Aeolus temple built on the rock dedicated to the wind deity Aiolos (Roman Aeolus) , which can only be reached via two rock bridges.
Zschokke and Goller rocks
A long way south of the parterre and Zwernitz Castle lie two cliff-like rock groups in the open field, which have been incorporated into the garden as fringes and connected to the grove by paths. The northern of the two groups contains the mushroom-like Zschokkefelsen (named after the poet Johann Heinrich Daniel Zschokke ) and the southern one contains the Gollerfelsen , also called Reigerfelsen in the 18th century . Originally it carried a pavilion, which was probably built under Margrave Carl Alexander von Bayreuth. In a cave at the foot of the Gollerfelsen stood the life-size, colored statue of a hermit who was reading a treatise by Theophrastus Paracelsus . Behind the rocks, the rock garden disappears into the open landscape, as is common in the later classic landscape gardens. To the north, the Zschokkefelsengruppe offers an unusually framed view of Zwernitz Castle.
Buildings in the rock garden
Apart from Zwernitz Castle , only the central part of the kitchen building , the heavily modified oriental building , which is used as a museum, and the theater of ruins and grottoes that have been used again have been preserved from the permanent structures of the rock garden .
Zwernitz Castle
Zwernitz Castle , built by the whale pots Friedrich and Uodalrich de Zvernze in the middle of the 12th century, experienced destruction and reconstruction in its eventful history. Its current appearance mainly dates from the 16th and 17th centuries. Only the keep and archive building as well as parts of the curtain walls of the Niederburg and Hochburg are based on the medieval origins. As a fortification, the castle has been of no importance since the 17th century. At the latest after the second Bering and the roundabout on the outer castle gate had been razed in 1793, the castle was nothing more than a historicizing landscape scenery of the rock garden, on which the interest had long been directed anyway.
It was obvious to include the castle in the concept of the rock garden, since the rocky landscape exhibited its highest formations there. The daring location of the archive building on a far overhanging rock shows how the limestone cliff was transferred to the architectural point of view and enhanced in an exemplary manner. The curvy walls of the Bering also closely follow the curves of the castle rock and thus use the specifications of the available terrain.
Kitchen construction
The kitchen building, built in its original form as a single-storey three-wing complex on the west side of the parterre opposite the Oriental building , with its partially plastered and fragmentary outer walls made of half-timbered or raw stones, represented a mixture of country mansions, farmsteads and artificial ruins. The three-winged complex opened to the ground floor Strangely enough, its central building had neither windows nor an entrance to the courtyard. Doors were only on the front of the side wings. For this purpose, contrary to all the practices of baroque and rococo gardening , a beech tree was planted exactly in the main architectural axis in the middle of the small courtyard. This alleged mistake is repeated in the inner courtyard of the Oriental Building and thus shows a system. The side wings of the kitchen building were demolished around 1840 for unknown reasons. In 1983/1984, the remaining building was redesigned. The aim of setting up a castle café with a terrace that was served led to the opening of the previously closed masonry facing the courtyard. Six windows and a central garden portal were added. The roof was completely changed to resemble a mansard .
Margrave and Burgrave House
The margrave and burgrave houses that flanked the ground floor were single-storey buildings in the style of Franconian farmhouses with steep gables and dwarf houses protruding from the center of the eaves . Their appearance was deliberately kept simple and artificially ruinous. The chimneys and plinths were shaped like piles of irregular stones with bushes growing on them. The small triangular gables above the house entrances were fragmented and cracked, as is common in ruin architecture . In 1839 the two houses were so dilapidated that they had to be demolished.
Oriental building (grove building)
The oriental building , which is around 50 × 40 meters in size , was built by the Bayreuth court architect Joseph Saint-Pierre in 1746/1747 based on the ideas of Margravine Wilhelmine . The building, conceived as a rural hermitage , represents an extraordinary combination of two opposing building types known in the Baroque and Rococo. On the one hand, the floor plan is based on the U-shaped three-wing complex with an open courtyard, on the other hand, the centralizing building type with a dominant middle building. As a result of this mixture, the rooms in the grove do not radiate like flowers from the elevated central building, but form a grape-shaped conglomerate along the main axis. The features of the three-wing system are barely recognizable. The small open courtyard behind the elevated central hall almost closes back on to the rock garden instead of opening wide there, as is typical of the time.
The margravine preferred labyrinthine confusing, circulating room groups, as her apartments in the New Palace in the Hermitage in Bayreuth attest. This heralded a pre-romantic rethinking in architecture, which, contrary to the principles that had previously been in force, now called for irregularities and as many broken lines as possible.
Similar to the New Palace of the Hermitage in Bayreuth, the front of the Oriental Building was encrusted like a mosaic with colorful glass rivers, red and blue stones and rock crystals , although not as consistently as there. This type of decoration was previously only known from the design of grotto-like interiors. Their use on external facades was a novelty. Especially when the sunlight came in from the side, when the colored stones and rock crystals began to glitter, the garden palace appeared to the viewer like a foreign palace made of ice and crystal. The original roof shape of the castle also reinforced this impression. The high central building had a flat tent roof and hoods clipped over the flanking cabinets. Everything together created a Byzantine-oriental impression, which was reinforced by the naming as an oriental building .
After 1835, like all other decorations and structures in the rock garden, the oriental building also fell into disrepair . Almost all of the “oriental” features of the garden palace disappeared during the renovations in the 1950s. When it reopened in 1956, the name Hainbau was introduced, but this did not catch on .
lobby
The vestibule of the castle on the west side, flanked by shell rectangles, is both the entrance and the beginning of the main building axis. This is followed by the high hall, the open inner courtyard and the narrow passage to the garden, while to the left of it are the rooms of the margravine and opposite those of the margrave. The unadorned vestibule is a rectangular room measuring two by four meters with niches on both sides that were closed with bars in 1955.
room
In the two-storey hall, there is a system of eight bent corner pilasters that continue up to the upper storey and stand there in front of rectangular fields with stucco rocailles . The hollow of the flat hollow ceiling is divided into eight equal fields framed by rocailles. The mirror in the middle of the ceiling is set off from these fields by a curved profile strip. The pink stucco on a light yellow background of the hall, probably work by Bayreuth court stucco plasterer Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi from 1748, suffered greatly when the building fell into disrepair between 1835 and 1951. Missing areas were supplemented in 1956 by trompe l'œil paintings. In the actually octagonal room, the four sloping fields between the doors are broken up by semicircular niches, so that the octagonal character is almost lost. In two of these niches are sandstone statues of Minerva and Ceres , works by the Bayreuth court sculptor Johann Gabriel Räntz from 1747/1748. They originally come from the balustrade of the Margravial Opera House in Bayreuth and were only brought to Sanspareil in 1956. The third niche contains, standing on a marbled wooden base, the bust of the builder, Margrave Friedrich von Bayreuth, created around 1755 by Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi for the New Palace in Bayreuth . The bust in the hall of the Oriental Building is only a cast of the original. The fourth niche of the room is taken up by the fireplace. Japanese porcelain vases from the 18th century stand on the mantelpiece. Four simple stools complete the hall furnishings.
Margravine's salon
The almost square salon of the margravine with two windows on the north side served her as a reception room and at the same time as a passage room to the cabinet and rest room. The white stucco ceiling of the salon on a gray background is attributed to Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi, the parquet floor to the Bayreuth cabinet maker Johann Friedrich Spindler.
The carved console table in white and gold and provided with a gray Bayreuth marble top was created around 1750. The chest of drawers with geometric inlay made of walnut with gold-plated bronze fittings is around 15 years older. The half cupboard with flower marquetry made of rosewood, mahogany and walnut with a reddish marble top dates from around 1760 . The dressing table with inlaid diamond pattern made of cherry and ebony from around 1780 has gold-plated bronze fittings. The white carved chairs were manufactured in Bayreuth around 1760, and their covers have been renewed. The mirror comes from the Lohr am Main manufactory around 1730, and its mirrored and etched glass frame has been partially supplemented. The second mirror with a carved and gilded frame is about 50 years younger. The gold-plated bronze clock from the G. Schmidt workshop in Bamberg comes from the same period . The gilded carving chandelier dominating the room is probably also a Bamberg work from around 1830. The wall arms and the two gilded bronze candlesticks date from around 1780. The salon is also adorned with a clay vase with gold relief decoration from the 18th century as well as the portrait of Margrave Georg Friedrich von Ansbach (around 1700), the picture of an unknown lady-in-waiting with a portrait of a cavalier (around 1660/70) and, as a counterpart, the picture of a also unknown lady-in-waiting with a portrait of a girl from the same period.
Cabinet of the Margravine
The Margravine's round cabinet, lit by two windows, is located in the northwest corner of the Oriental Building and is about 3.5 meters in diameter. You enter it from the salon, there is no further entrance or exit.
In the wall niche is the cast of an antique draped bust of the Margrave Friedrich von Bayreuth. The original from around 1760 is in the first tapestry room of the New Bayreuth Palace. The gaming table with a marbled wooden base and geometric inlay made of rosewood , manufactured around 1750, comes from Bayreuth, as do the white-gray, partially gold-plated chairs with carving and cane from the same period. The painting Mars and Venus in Olympus was created in Nuremberg around 1620/1630 by an unknown painter. The two fruit still lifes by Peter Jakob Horemans are on loan from the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich.
Margravine's resting room
As in the margravine's salon, the only fragmentary ceiling stucco work in her rest room is executed in white on a gray background and is attributed to Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi, the parquet floor to Johann Friedrich Spindler. Both furnishings date from 1746/47.
The furnishings include a chest of drawers carved from oak wood, which was made in Bayreuth around 1750, a white table with gold decoration from around 1780, which was also carved, and a seating set with renewed covers in white with gold from the same period. The chimney mirror, the carved frame of which was renewed, was made in Bayreuth around 1730. The two gold-plated wall arms made of cast bronze are 50 years younger. The Japanese Imari porcelain flute vase dates from the 18th century, while the serpentine bowl is of unknown origin. The painting The Finding of Moses by an also unknown master is ascribed to the second half of the 17th century.
The most important exhibits of the Oriental Building are two series of engravings over the Sanspareil rock garden, some of which are shown in this article. They were drawn by the Bayreuthers Johann Thomas Köppel (father) between 1746 and 1748 and Johann Gottfried Köppel (son) in 1793. They are designated as follows:
With the signature Johann Thomas Köppel :
- VUE DU VIEUX CHATEAU DE SANSPAREIL DU COTÉ DU RÖMERSBERG / PROSPT: FROM THE ALTÈ CASTLE TO SANSPAREIL TO THE RÖMERSBERG.
- PROSPECT FROM THE EREMITAGE TO SANSPAREIL / VUE DE L'EREMITAGE À SANSPAREIL
- VUE DU BATIMENT PRINCIPAL-EREMITE A SANSPAREIL PROSPECT FROM THE MAIN EREMITE BUILDING TO SANSPAREIL / AVEC PRIVILEGE DE SON ALT SER: LE MARGGRAVE DE BRANDENB. BAYREUTH
- PROSPECT FROM THE THEATRO TO SANSPAREIL / VUE DU THEATER DE SANSPAREIL / AVEC PRIVILEGE DE SA SER. LE MARGGRAVE DE BRANDENBOURG BAYREUTH
- PROSPECT DES LUST CABINETS ON THE ROCK AND BEY THE CAVE CALYPSE VELVET PART OF THE THEATRI AT SANSPAREIL / VUE DU CABINET SUR LE ROC DE LA GROTTE DE CALYPSE AVEC UNE PARTIE DU THEATER BATIE A LA ROCAILLE A SANSPAREIL
With the signature Johann Gottfried Köppel :
- 1. The main hermit buildings at Sanspareil .
- 2. Two Cavaliers Haeusser at Sanspareil . (The name is wrong, it is about the kitchen construction.)
- 3. Grotto of the Calypso at Sanspareil .
- 4. Grotto of Diana and Rock of Love at Sanspareil .
- 5. Rock of love for Sanspareil .
- 6. The Sanspareil Theater .
- 7. View from the theater towards the Calypsogrotto .
- 8. The Aeolus grotto at Sanspareil .
- 9. The volcanic grotto at Sanspareil .
- 10. The so-called chicken hole at Sanspareil .
- 11. a.) The straw house .
- 11. b.) The Reiger rock . (Reigerfelsen is another name for the Gollerfelsen.)
- without number: Prospect of Zwernitz Castle and the Sanspareil area .
These 18 engravings, which were shown in the oriental building as early as the 18th century , were of great importance in the 1950s for the reconstruction of the original condition and are often the only evidence of the disappeared staffages and structures in the rock garden.
Margrave's salon
The ceiling stucco work by Giovanni Battista Pedrozzi in 1747/48 is only partially preserved. As in all the rooms in the Oriental Building , the parquet flooring comes from the Bayreuth cabinet maker Johann Friedrich Spindler.
The furnishings of the margrave's salon include a carved console table in white with gold and a gray Bayreuth marble top. It was made in Bayreuth around 1750. The carved oak chest of drawers with gold-plated bronze fittings comes from Franconia and was made around 1755/1760. The rolling desk veneered with rose and cherry wood with gilded bronze fittings is dated to around 1780. The chairs distributed in the room, the covers of which were replaced, were made around 1720, the mirror with carved, gold-plated frame around 1780. The chandelier with green carving and gold leaf is a Franconian work around 1800. The table clock in ebony housing with gold-plated bronze fittings is 20 years older . The portrait of Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth is a copy of the original by Antoine Pesne from around 1745/50, which was damaged in 1945. The painting Merkur sleeps Argus is attributed to the Bayreuth court painter Wilhelm Wunder around 1755. The still life with flowers and fruits is on loan from the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich.
Margrave's cabinet
The relatively unadorned cabinet of the Margrave contains a gaming table with a marble top and geometric inlay made of rosewood. It was built around 1760. The carved, gray-framed chairs date from around 1750, the covers of which were renewed in the 1950s. By 1700, one probably created Ansbacher court painter's portrait of Margrave Wilhelm Friedrich of Ansbach. The second picture around 1720/30 shows an unknown lady-in-waiting.
Margrave's resting room
The Margrave's resting room contains the following exhibits: a chest of drawers with elaborate inlay made of cherry and walnut from around 1780, a grandfather clock from around 1780/90, also with inlay made of walnut and mahogany, on the dial of the clockmaker Jean Krapp from Mannheim is noted, and some carved chairs from around 1780, the frames and covers of which have been renewed. There also hangs the only tapestry in the garden palace with the title Alter Penitent , probably made in the margravial tapestry manufacture in Erlangen around 1740/50. The oil painting by Ochsler in the toilet room of the New Bayreuth Palace served as a template. The portrait of the last Margrave of Ansbach-Bayreuth Alexander Carl Christian Friedrich and his wife Friederike Caroline, born Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, was created around 1760. It was damaged in 1945 and later restored. The Still Life with Poultry and Rabbits by Hahn, the Penitent Magdalena by Christian von Mannlich from 1777 and the Dutch Forest Landscape from around 1670 are loans from the Bavarian State Painting Collections in Munich.
Hunting room
In the margrave's hunting room a number of capital deer antlers and some hunting paintings are on display. The room should indicate that the entire Sanspareil complex was also pragmatically viewed as a hunting area, especially by Margrave Friedrich.
patio
The rectangular open inner courtyard of the Oriental Building with edges of four and six meters lies on the main axis of the building between the hall and the garden entrance. A mighty beech tree standing in the middle of the east side of the courtyard, which obstructs the architectural line of sight towards the rock garden, is unusual. When looking through the large glass door of the central hall to the courtyard, it gives the impression of a vedute . In the 18th century the illusion was described: the view through the glass door is pleasantly deceptive. Like a painting you can see a proud beech trunk with its silver bark contrasting against the dark rock. It is nature. This explains the unusual spatial organization of the Oriental Building : the Oriental Building was planned and executed around this mighty beech tree, in whose bark Margrave Alexander cut his name in 1771 and which were replanted in 1823 and 1951 . The original relationship between architecture inside and nature outside in the geometric gardens of the Baroque and Rococo is reversed here.
In an original way, the oriental building takes the cult of the tree arbors, which have been a regular part of German and Swiss garden art since the Middle Ages, to extremes. The leading French garden theorist of the early 18th century, Antoine-Joseph Dézallier d'Argenville , describes it as follows: There are trees in Germany that are very ingeniously grown. Halls are built there, 7–8 feet above the ground, with the treetop itself forming the roof and the arcaded side walls. The floor is supported by wooden pillars or stone pillars. The garden historian Erich Bachmann sees in the oriental building the architectonic form of these tree arbors, traditional in Germany, for the first time in Sanspareil and thus truly unparalleled at the time.
Ruin and grotto theater
The ruin and grotto theater in the south-eastern part of the rock garden is the only one of the Sanspareil staffages that has been preserved almost intact since its construction in 1744. The Bayreuth court architect Joseph Saint-Pierre took the ruin theater in the Hermitage in Bayreuth, which he had also built a year earlier, as a template. Both ruins and rock theaters are considered to be the invention of Margravine Wilhelmine. The only example of a rock theater until then, the stone theater on the Hellbrunn mountain near Salzburg , which was built between 1610 and 1620 and has some design parallels to Sanspareil, served as a model.
Structure and meaning
In the case of the theater in the Bayreuth Hermitage, only the stage prospect was in the form of an artificial ruin , but in Sanspareil the auditorium also becomes a scene. As in Salzburg-Hellbrunn, it is located under a mighty natural rock bridge and, as there, the surrounding rock formations are also part of the prospectus in Sanspareil. In addition to the historicizing element of the artificial ruin, there was also the naturalistic and mythical aspect of the entire scenery, which found expression in the originally existing statuary decoration. The statues of two satyrs crouched at the feet of the front festoon arch as if growing out of the rock , with two oval bust reliefs with ideal portraits of Homer and Virgil set on pilasters above them . The pilasters merged into horns of plenty, between which the vertex in the form of the Medusa head protruded. While the apex of the second arch was worked out as a tragic mask, the third arch appears unfinished in order to reinforce the ruin character. This is followed by two more arches, the last of which is a fragment of the rear wall of the stage, from which a short staircase leads to the outside. A herm with the bust of the terminus is in front of the central column of the rear wall . The height and width of the five festoon arches are reduced towards the rear wall in order to make the stage area appear deeper. There is a walled orchestra pit in front of the actual stage .
Garden and open-air theaters, also with grottos and ancient ruins, have been known since the 16th century. What is new at the rock theaters in Bayreuth and particularly pronounced in Sanspareil is the abolition of the separation between the previously independent stage elements of scenery and accessories . The stone architecture integrated into the free rocky landscape turns the theater backdrop into a staffage in the garden's program.
use
It is not known whether there were performances in the rock theater Sanspareil before 1980, but the orchestra pit and auditorium indicate that something like this was at least planned. The given scenery naturally limited the choice of themes that the artificial ruin created, in contrast to the usual baroque and rococo theaters with their transparent, fantastic backdrops, no illusions, but reflections on the transience and nothingness of everything earthly.
Since 1985 the Studiobühne Bayreuth has been performing regularly in the ruin and grotto theater in the Sanspareil rock garden with pieces from its current program. Concerts are also occasionally held in the rock theater. If the rock garden is otherwise freely accessible, an entrance fee must be paid for these performances.
literature
- Kai Kellermann: Stately gardens in Franconian Switzerland - a search for traces . Verlag Palm & Enke, Erlangen / Jena 2008, ISBN 978-3-7896-0683-0 , pp. 206-223.
- Veit Bub: Sanspareil . In: Oberfränkische Zeitung . 7th year, supplement No. 3 Upper Franconian homeland. Bayreuth 1879.
- Karl Sitzmann : The Walbotenburg Zwernitz . In: Oberfränkische Zeitung . 7th year, supplement No. 3 Upper Franconian homeland. Bayreuth 1879.
- Karl Meier-Gesees: The garden without equal . In: Franken-Heimat . No. 2. C. Geißel, Bayreuth 1950.
- Erich Bachmann: Beginnings of the landscape garden in Germany . In: Journal for Art History . tape 5 . Berlin 1951, p. 203-234 .
- Erich Bachmann: The Sanspareil rock garden and its preliminary stages . More beautiful homeland, Bavarian National Association for Homeland Care, Munich 1951.
- Erich Bachmann: Bayreuth ruin theater . C. Geißel (Franken-Heimat), Bayreuth 1952.
- Hellmut Kunstmann : Castles in Upper Franconia (= The Plassenburg . Volume 10 ). tape II . Society for Franconian History, Kulmbach 1955.
- Erich Bachmann: The Margravine Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and her world . Exhibition catalog for the 250th birthday of the Margravine, Munich 1959.
- Erich Bachmann u. a .: Bayreuth Rococo . The Bayerland , born 63, Munich 1961.
- Klaus Merten: The Bayreuth court architect Joseph Saint-Pierre . Yearbook 44 Historical Association for Upper Franconia , Bayreuth 1964.
- Heinrich Thiel: Wilhelmine of Bayreuth . Munich 1967.
- Dieter Hennebo, Alfred Hoffmann: History of German Garden Art Volume II . Broschek, Hamburg 1963.
- Dieter Hennebo, Alfred Hoffmann: History of the German garden art volume III . Broschek, Hamburg 1965.
- Hubert Klemke, Heinz Biehn : History of garden art . Prestel, Munich 1966.
- Derek Clifford: A history of Garden design . Faber, London 1962.
- Erich Bachmann: Sanspareil Castle Rock Garden Zwernitz . Official leader. 3. Edition. Max Schmidt, Munich 1979.
- Clemens Alexander Wimmer: History of the garden theory . Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 1989, ISBN 3-534-01314-X .
- Gerhard Pfeiffer: Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth and the hermitages at Bayreuth and Sanspareil . Archives and historical research, Bayreuth 1966.
- August Gebeßler : City and District of Kulmbach . (= The art monuments of Bavaria , brief inventories . Volume III). Deutscher Kunstverlag , Munich 1958, pp. 82–84.
Web links
- Literature from and about Felsengarten Sanspareil in the bibliographic database WorldCat
- Official website of the Bavarian Palace Administration
References and comments
- ↑ Geotope: Sanspareil Rock Garden (accessed on September 4, 2013; PDF; 184 kB)
- ↑ Erich Bachmann: Sanspareil rock garden and Zwernitz Castle. Official leader. Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, 1979, p. 19.
- ^ Gerhard Pfeiffer: Margravine Wilhelmine von Bayreuth and the hermitages at Bayreuth and Sanspareil. Archives and historical research, Bayreuth 1966, p. 209.
- ↑ Pietro Porcinai, Attilio Mordini: Giardini d'Occidente e d'Oriente (Elite. Le Arti e gli stili in ogni tempo e paese), Milan 1966 (Giardini di pietra) Figs. 20, 49, 54, 55, 56.
- ^ Derek Clifford: A history of Garden design. London 1962. (German edition, edited by Heinz Biehn: Geschichte der Gartenkunst. Munich 1966, pp. 307, 316-318)
- ^ D. Hennebo, A. Hoffmann: History of the German garden art. Volume II, Hamburg 1965, pp. 327-334; Volume III, 1965, pp. 47-49.
- ^ Information to Erich Bachmann from gardening director Christian Bauer, Munich, 1951 (Official Guide 1979, p. 58)
- ↑ Quotation in: Erich Bachmann: Official guide Felsengarten Sanspareil and Burg Zwernitz. 1979, p. 18.
- ↑ Erich Bachmann: The rock garden Sanspareil and its preliminary stages. Munich 1951, p. 106 ff.
- ^ Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach, Draft of a Historical Architecture , Leipzig 1725, III. Book, plate 15
- ↑ Fénelon
- ↑ a b c d Beatrice Härig: The rock garden in Sanspareil . monumente-online.de
- ↑ fraenkische-schweiz.bayern-online.de bayern-online.de
- ↑ Contemporary engraving No. 2 by JC Bock after a drawing by JG Köppel, exhibition room 6 Morgenländischer Bau
- ↑ Bavarian Palace Administration
- ↑ a b Veit Bub: Sanspareil. In: Oberfränkische Zeitung. 7th year, supplement No. 3, Oberfränkische Heimat, Bayreuth 1879, p. 50 ff.
- ↑ Quotes from: Veit Bub: Sanspareil. In: Oberfränkische Zeitung. 7th year, supplement No. 3, Oberfränkische Heimat, Bayreuth 1879, p. 50 ff.
- ↑ Erich Bachmann: The rock garden Sanspareil and its preliminary stages. Schönere Heimat 1951, p. 106 ff.
- ↑ Erich Bachmann: Sanspareil rock garden and Zwernitz Castle. Official leader. Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, 1979, p. 16 f.
- ↑ Engraving No. 3 from 1793 by JC Bock after a drawing by JG Köppel, exhibition room 6 Morgenländischer Bau
- ↑ Erich Bachmann: Sanspareil rock garden and Zwernitz Castle. Official leader. Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, 1979, p. 34 f.
- ^ Antoine-Joseph Dézallier d'Argenville: La Théorie Et La Pratique Du Jardinage. Paris 1709, pp. 67-74.
- ↑ Erich Bachmann: Sanspareil rock garden and Zwernitz Castle. Official leader. Bavarian Administration of State Palaces, 1979, p. 58 f.
- ↑ Erich Bachmann: Bayreuth ruin theater. Verlag C. Geißel, Bayreuth 1952, p. 3.
- ↑ Information from the Studiobühne Bayreuth ( Memento of the original from May 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 49 ° 58 ′ 57.7 ″ N , 11 ° 19 ′ 17.5 ″ E
