SCHLOSS BENRATH | Castle in Düsseldorf | Rococo castle interior | Rococo-style ornaments | Corps de Logis

SCHLOSS BENRATH | Castle in Düsseldorf (Germany)

Rococo castle interior

This blog entry about Castle Benrath is a translation made possible by  www.deepl.com . 

The original text you can find on my Dutch Woodcarving Blog, Ornamentsnijder Blog.

Link :ornamentsnijder.blogspot.com

SCHLOSS BENRATH | Castle in Düsseldorf

If you drive in the direction of Wuppertal (Bergisches Land), the city of Benrath, which used to be a small hamlet but has been a part of Düsseldorf since 1929, is located right bank of the river Rhine.

To the northwest at the end of the main street in Benrath lies the hunting and pleasure castle "Maison de Plaisance" in Rococo style with a vast park of the former Elector of the Palatinate Charles Theodore of Bavaria (1724 -1799). Karel Theodoor initially resided in Mannheim, capital of the Palatinate.

Between 1755 and 1771 he had a new summer residence built in the Rococo style in Benrath under the direction of the court architect Nicolas de Pigage.

When Charles Theodoor became Elector of Bavaria in 1777, he moved his main residence to Munich. In the summer he resided in Schwetzingen Castle, built by his uncle Charles Philip.

Charles Thedodoor and his wife Elisabeth Auguste made hardly any use of this castle. At the inauguration there was an evening party and Karel Theodoor visited the castle once on a day trip.

Elector: The elector was one of the seven, later one of the nine, most prominent princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and only they were allowed to choose a new emperor.

The domain stretches as far as the banks of the Rhine. The outbuildings of the castle are home to several museums. The castle is almost a smaller version of Schwetzingen castle.

The Schlosscafé is located in one of the gatehouses. Before we started the tour we couldn't resist to have something to eat here. A good price quality with friendly service.

Schloss Benrath is a particularly charming castle that survived the turbulent after years of World War II almost unharmed. In the spring of 2019 I visited the castle with a number of students. 

The castle can only be visited with a guide. Every hour a small group of people leave for a guided tour of one of the wings of the castle; a visit that takes about an hour.

The entrance fee was not too high as in many German castles, castles and palaces, and amounted to p.p. 10 Euro. ( 12,5 US Dollar) 

Also here are the oversized felt slippers available. These slippers are required to wear over your own footwear to protect the original floors from possible damage.  Photographing is allowed but without flash. Here we have also gratefully taken advantage of the opportunity.

Below is a short report by Schloss Benrath.

The route to the castle is clearly indicated and parking is in the park and free of charge.

Castle Benrath

The Corps de Logis is the main building of the castle which consists of five separate buildings.

The main building served as a royal residence and has four floors with a total of eighty rooms.

The two wings to the right and left of the main building (Corps de Logis) are symmetrically located on the pond and were used as service buildings. They are connected to the main building by underground corridors. In this way, the work of the service staff was hidden from view and the meals could also be brought dry to the main building. In the two side wings there are now two museums, the museum of physics and the museum of garden art. The two gatehouses on both sides guard the entrances to the domain.

The Vestibule

The vestibule, the festive entrance, connects the inner space with the outside through the artful plasterwork. The rooms above the doors represent the four seasons and the elements earth, water, air and fire have been installed on the large wall surfaces.

The theme of nature constantly appears in the interior and exterior decoration of the castle. The idea of 'the castle as a summer residence in the countryside' is touched upon time and again. The vestibule not only served as a reception area, but also as a dining room. The original tables in this room make this clear to us.

The dome hall

The dome room is the banquet hall of the castle. Here people celebrated and danced. At the very top, even higher than the second dome, in the turret, also called the lantern, was the orchestral space. The dome depicts a painted scene, the goddess Diana returning from her nocturnal hunt. The fact that hunting is the main theme of the castle can also be seen in the decoration on the ground floor with the numerous animals killed, hunting dogs, hunting towers, safety nets,... Three windows show us the surrounding nature. The two official entrances to the Electors' Apartments can be accessed from the domed hall. Above these (private) doors are the initials of the prince electors "CT" and "FA" who "point the way" to their personal apartments.

The garden room

The Electress garden room is the first private living space. We can see that the cool marble floor has just turned into a warm parquet floor. The beautifully elaborated parquet pattern, the location of the doors, the windows and the mirror were conceived with attention to symmetrical and geometric principles that played an important role in the 18th century.

Optical deception and illusions were also part of this. The two opposite mirrors create the impression of infinite spaces.

Electress bedroom

The bedroom of the Electress is the first room in this tour which is covered with silk wallpaper, a special form of comfort. The bed stood in a niche that could be closed with hinged doors. Drawings and travel reports give us proof that the Electoress had a bed made for this in the form of a folded shell.

To the left and right of the niche there are hidden doors in the wallpaper. Behind it are small rooms that were used as a dressing room and make-up room, reading room and craft room. From there one could reach the Electoral Bathroom on one side and the toilet on the other side, a little bit dart was very modern in the 18th century.

The Order Room (service room)

The Cabinet is the last room in the Electress living space. It was used for writing, a door hidden in the wallpaper gave access to the Order Room or service room of the Electress, the living room for the chambermaid. Here she could, among other things, adjust her clothes and spend the night. The next room was probably used as a cloakroom, if we look at the many wall cabinets. In this room there is a portrait of the French architect Nicolas de Pigage. Schloss Benrath is considered to be his architectural masterpiece.

The upper floor

On the upper floor there are four luxuriously furnished living rooms for senior guests. Each apartment had, according to French tradition, three rooms, an antechamber, a bedroom and a cabinet. The apartments were each occupied by one person. The servants stayed in adjoining rooms. There is also a cap on this floor, which was only allowed to be entered by the Electors and their guests. From a gallery, the house staff could follow the church service strictly separated from the nobility.

Here are some more impressions of our visit 

at Schloss Benrath near Düsseldorf

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A wooden carved Rococo mirror frame | Large wooden rococo style mirror | Carved and Gilded mirror over a chimney | Architectural woodcarving

Carving a Rococo mirror frame |
 Patrick Damiaens, ornamental woodcarver

Carving a Rococo style mirror in wood

Wooden mirror for above a mantelpiece 

Gilded Rococo mirror frame

A blogentry from this site:

https://www.patrickdamiaens.info

We always start with a design, my creation of a Rococo mirror frame was based on an example made in polyester. This polyester copy had been hanging in my client's living room for 25 years. 

If you think long term, polyester is not a good investment, it hasn't had a long life, small and medium sized parts and pieces broke off from the mirror for quite some time now, the whole Rococo mirror was actually falling apart, and becoming sprinkly. 

So it was time to replace it and the only option was for the customer to make an (improved) copy of the polyester model.

It is always nice to be able to make a nice design, this Rococo mirror is meant as decoration for a marble mantelpiece, sometimes you can see this kind of mirrors in a wooden trumeau, this one is about 2 meters high and 120 wide and intended for a house in the Netherlands. 

Rococo is one of the more difficult styles to reproduce. Horizontal lines are almost non-existent, they are replaced by delicate curves, long drawn or pulled acanthusleaf motifs and many rocailles motifs merge into one another. Asymmetry is the strong point of this style. 

The effect is capricious, marvelous, captivating and enchanting. It is a style that appeals more to the senses, less to the intellect and emphasizes beauty over content.

Placing a drawing on the wood 

The preparation of the lime wood construction of the mirror, the sawing and the various operations with the router has taken a lot of time. Accuracy is important in every phase at this stage and that starts with transferring the drawing of the Rococo mirror to lime paper, by means of carbonless paper or hand film, the design of the Rococo mirror is transferred to the wood. 

Remember this drawing is very important and you should definitely check it carefully (on lime paper and on the wood) to make sure that all the lines of the design are present. 

Even a not unimportant..., a bad design or drawing can only lead to a bad end result. All stages in this phase of the creation are linked to each other, if you forget something or if you prepare something badly, this will have consequences at a later stage. 

The four separate parts are glued to an MDF board, between the wood of the mirror and the MDF board is a newspaper or ordinary paper glued, this will ensure that after finishing the cutting work the part of the mirror is easily detached from the MDF board.

Practical mounting

The carving of the ornaments happens in this case with the drawing and the polyester example on the workbench. With an altimeter we take crucial measurements on the original and transfer these reference heights to the lime wood. 

The large frame is cut first and then serves as a reference for and Rococo design of the ornaments, these ornaments have specific names, such as rocaille, acanthus leaf motif, agraphe, etc.... Each stage in the carving of an ornament is important but we start with the rough shaping of the whole and gradually refine it, until we are satisfied with design and finishing. 

When the visible front of each part, in this case four pieces, is ready we turn the piece around, put it in a blanket and start cutting the back, the excess wood behind the ornament is removed and the Rococo ornament begins to come loose visually, you look sideways no longer against a mass of wood, and all attention goes to the ornament itself. What remains are the four transitions of the parts, making sure that mouldings and ornaments merge smoothly into one another.

This Rococo mirror frame will still be provided with gold leaf, but that's another specialisation that will be done by another craftsman.

Rococo

The rococo style is a European style period that reached its peak between 1730 and 1760. The name rococo is derived from the French word rocaille: an asymmetrical shell motif that was widely used in the mid-18th century on furniture, doors, panelling, etc.. 

The word rocaille goes back to the French words roc (rock) and coquilles (shells) and indicates that it is mainly a decorative style.

Rococo originated in France as a reaction to the severe classicist baroque of around 1700. 

The subsequent Rococo style is characterised by grace, elegance, charm, wit and playful eroticism. The style remained popular for over seventy years in the eighteenth century. After that, the style of neoclassicism gradually made its appearance and the rococo style disappeared.

As many styles have received their names in art history, the name rococo was initially intended to be mocking. The word refers to decorative shell shapes from the Baroque period. 

Despite the many commissions, the Rococo artists were severely criticised. Opponents felt that their works of art were not serious enough in terms of content. Moreover, it was thought to be too much in the service of the decadent upper class. Therefore, the Rococo was mainly regarded as a decorative style. 

WIKI 

Rococo, less commonly  Late Baroque, is an exceptionally ornamental and theatrical style of architecture, art and decoration which combines asymmetry, scrolling curves, gilding, white and pastel colors, sculpted molding, and trompe l'oeil frescoes to create surprise and the illusion of motion and drama. It first appeared in France and Italy in the 1730s and spread to Central Europe in the 1750s and 1760s. It is often described as the final expression of the Baroque movement.

The Rococo style began in France in the first part of the 18th century in the reign of Louis XV as a reaction against the more formal and geometric Style Louis XIV. It was known as the style rocaille, or rocaille style. It soon spread to other parts of Europe, particularly northern Italy, Bavaria, Austria, other parts of Germany, and Russia. It also came to influence the other arts, particularly sculpture, furniture, silverware and glassware, painting, music, and theatre.

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