Nischwitz Castle
The Nischwitz Castle is a castle in the style of Rococo in Nischwitz , a place of Saxon village Thallwitz in the district of Leipzig . Erected between 1714 and 1721, it was given its current appearance by Heinrich von Brühl , who had it expanded and converted into a representative summer residence around 1750. After it became more and more dilapidated in the second half of the 20th century, a private investor bought the property in the early 1990s and has been gradually restoring it since then.
history
The history of the castle goes back to the late Middle Ages . The place was acquired by the von Nischwitz family in 1450 together with the associated manor , from whom it was named.
In 1714, the owner at the time, the Saxon Chamber Master Baron von Rackwitz, arranged for a new castle to be built with corresponding outbuildings and a park after the old manor had fallen into disrepair. Matthäus Daniel Pöppelmann was responsible as the architect . After completion in 1721, the property changed hands several times over the years.
Finally, Count Heinrich von Brühl acquired the property in 1743. Around 1750 he, meanwhile Prime Minister of Saxony under Elector Friedrich August II. , Had the property converted into his summer residence in the Rococo style under the direction of Oberlandesbaumeister Johann Christoph Knöffel . The extensive extensions and renovations created an ensemble that has been preserved to this day with its spacious courtyard, orangery, administration buildings and the castle park adjoining the garden.
Much of the original, precious interior has been lost. The late baroque wall and ceiling paintings in the garden and ballroom, which are attributed to the Italian painter Stefano Torelli , are worth seeing . They show hunting impressions and mythological scenes.
During the Seven Years' War , Prussian troops invaded Saxony in 1758. They occupied and looted the castle. After Heinrich von Brühl's death, his heirs sold the property to the Leipzig lawyer Phillip Heinrich Lastrop.
After further changes of ownership, extensive renovations were carried out on the ground floor in the middle of the 19th century under the direction of Gustav Adolf Boenisch , in the course of which the baroque staircase was replaced by a representative late classicist staircase and provided with large wall and ceiling paintings. At that time, the Rococo Park laid out by Friedrich August Krubsacius was transformed into an English landscape garden with tea pavilions and stone statues and vases. The von Ritzenberg family had a family crypt built in the form of a Doric temple in this park in 1848 .
Towards the end of the century, in 1888, Kurt von Zimmermann bought the Nischwitz castle and estate. In the last days of the Second World War , the von Zimmermann family fled from approaching Soviet troops and were expropriated during the Soviet occupation from 1945-1949 . Subsequent efforts by the family to get their property back after the reunification of Germany were unsuccessful apart from the return of some furniture.
As state property of the GDR, the castle, which survived the war largely undamaged, served as a retirement and nursing home until the fall of the Berlin Wall . During this time, the construction of the complex began to deteriorate, which was only temporarily halted. Thanks to the work of a group of Polish restorers since the beginning of the 1980s, the garden front of the palace was largely restored to its original state.
In the early 1990s, the community sold the palace complex to a private investor named Grimm. It later became a holding company . This gradually restores the late baroque palace complex. So far, the facade of the courtyard front, the adjoining orangery and administration buildings as well as the tea house in the park have been restored. Inside, extensive restoration work took place on the ceiling and wall paintings as well as the late classical staircase.
Interior decoration - ballroom
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According to Walter May's description , the rococo decoration of the ballroom has been preserved in its original overall impression despite the devastation of 1758. When the castle was looted, only the chimney mirrors and the wall mirrors on the pillars of the window wall were torn out. The rococo decoration of the wall facade is first divided into “panneaux” and “pilastres”, the wide and the narrow wall fields. These projections and recesses are then divided into the base and upper wall zone. The second level of structure is formed by profiled recesses or strips that trace the contour of the wall field on a slightly reduced scale. The base zone shows this division. In the narrow wall fields, the “pilastres” of the upper zone, the first rocailles are located at the turning points of the frame profile. Various putti medallions in the rocaille cartouche appear as an ornament in the middle. No wall decoration appears on the larger wall fields, the “panneaux”, but a mirror, a picture or a framed pictorial emblem. The rococo ornament appears in the frames of the pictures or mirrors, or forms this frame itself.
According to Cornelius Gurlitt , this audience room / ballroom is on the second floor. The walls are pink and white in stucco marble with individual gilding. There is a fresco by Stefano Torelli on the ceiling : the fall of Phaeton . There are frescoes on the walls with Diana as a motif.
Interior decoration - garden room
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According to Cornelius Gurlitt , the garden hall is on the ground floor at the garden front. According to Gurlitt, the fresco was a work by Stefano Torelli: Triumph of Venus, who guides the dolphin . The wall surfaces also show frescoes: The liberation of Andromeda, Europe, Syrens, a river god, Icarus and Daedalus, sea deities . Gurlitt sees the stucco ornaments in the rounded corners at the back as "original decorations from Knöffel's time". While the rest are from the time of restoration around 1770, by another artist.
Gurlitt's view is not shared by Walter May , he ascribes the entire stucco composition to a strange artist from the time of the restoration around 1770.
Todays use
Part of the restored outbuildings now houses apartments, while the castle is used for representational purposes.
literature
- Johannes Hohlfeld : Contributions to the history of the von Zimmermann family (= contributions to German family history . Volume 3 ). Central Office for German Personal and Family History, Leipzig 1925.
- Hans Krumbholz: castles, palaces, parks and gardens . 3rd edition Tourist-Verl., Berlin et al. 1988, ISBN 3-350-00285-4 .
- Walter May : Nischwitz Castle and the architecture of the Saxon Rococo . Technical University of Dresden, Dresden 1969 (dissertation, 2 volumes).
- Martin Schreiber: Description of the palace complex in Nischwitz . University of Fine Arts, Dresden 1996.
- Helmuth Gröger: Nischwitz - A castle of Count Brühl . In: Castles and Palaces in Saxony , Verlag Heimatwerk Sachsen, 1940, p. 95
Web links
- Thallwitz: Nischwitz Castle on Sachsens-Schlösser.de
- Nischwitz Castle on Burgen-und-Schloesser.net
- Ekkehard Schulreich: Star architect of the 18th century also worked in Nischwitz Castle - The famous patron of 18th century architecture, Heinrich Graf von Brühl, is known for his magnificent buildings such as the Brühl'schen Terrassen in Dresden. But his trail also leads to the Mulde, more precisely to Nischwitz in the Leipzig district. Leipziger Volkszeitung , online portal. Retrieved May 10, 2020 .
Individual evidence
- ^ Eduard Sommer: The fatherland of the Saxons. Mittheilungen aus Sachsen's past and present, Volume 2, Dresden 1842 Online at Google Books Non-paginated lithograph between pages 56 and 57.
- ↑ Kirchner: The Parish Nischwitz . In: The Ephorie Grimma on the right of the Mulde (= New Saxon Church Gallery ). [9. Tape]. Arwed Strauch, Leipzig 1914, Sp. 531 ff . ( Digitized version ).
- ↑ Family tree of the von Zimmermann family ( Memento of the original from April 27, 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.
- ^ Walter May : Nischwitz Castle and the architecture of the Saxon Rococo. (= Dissertation TU Dresden, Sect. Archit., 2 volumes) Dresden 1969, DNB 482453052 , p. 168f.
- ↑ Cornelius Gurlitt: Nischwitz. In: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony, Amtshauptmannschaft Grimma (2nd half). CC Meinhold, Dresden 1898, pp. 194f.
- ↑ Cornelius Gurlitt: Nischwitz. In: Descriptive representation of the older architectural and art monuments of the Kingdom of Saxony, Amtshauptmannschaft Grimma (2nd half). CC Meinhold, Dresden 1898, p. 195.
- ^ Walter May : Nischwitz Castle and the architecture of the Saxon Rococo. (= Dissertation TU Dresden, Sect. Archit., 2 volumes) Dresden 1969, DNB 482453052 , p. 180f.
Coordinates: 51 ° 23 ′ 32 " N , 12 ° 42 ′ 20" E