All 38 models were rewarded by Ludwig I. He took over their dowry, paid them an allowance or found them a job at court. He remained in active correspondence with some of them for years, while others only briefly crossed his life.[2]
The gallery of originally 40 works that the Bavarian Electress Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy had created between 1650 and 1675 by her Munich court painter who had a much greater influence on Ludwig I. The gallery probably first hung in the old Schleissheim Castle and can now be found at least in part in the vestibule of the Cuvilliés Theater in Munich. The motifs are allegories of alleged ladies-in-waiting of Princess Henriette.
Not only Ludwig I, but also Princess Henriette's son, Maximilian II Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, was inspired by these works. In his gallery of beauties there were the most beautiful ladies of the French court from the times of King Louis XIV. The latter could also come from Princess Henriette Adelaide's gallery.
Elector August II of Saxony had several galleries with beauties in Pillnitz Castle: one with ladies-in-waiting of Mary II of England, created by students of Anthony van Dyck, one by Pietro Rotari (1707–1762), whom he invited to Dresden in 1750, and possibly another one with beautiful Polish women.
In all of the beauty galleries mentioned so far, there is no discernible relationship between the ruler and the subject. William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, had Johann Heinrich Tischbein paint 28 beauties: 14 bourgeois ones for the first anteroom of Wilhelmsthal Palace, 14 noble ones for the second. These models were known to Wilhelm VIII; they were not portraits (or even copies of existing works) of ladies from other courts unknown to him, as had been common in previous beauty galleries.
Probably the largest gallery of beauties comes from Pietro Rotari. TsarinaElizabeth of Russia commissioned the painter from Verona, who had been her court painter since 1756, to create a cabinet of fashions and graces. He was supposed to paint young women who represented the diversity of Russian people. As part of this commission, Rotari not only created 360 pictures of middle-class Russian women for the Tsarina, but also an additional 50, which she gave away to the Russian Academy of Art. The Tsarina's pictures were intended for Peterhof Palace. Today around 40 of the works can be found in Arkhangelskoye Palace near Moscow.
Before the Gallery of Beauties was created, there was a small scandal around 1817 because of two works by Joseph Karl Stieler. He had painted a portrait of Countess Rambaldi, one of the king's mistresses, for Ludwig I. This souvenir image, which allegorically depicts the Countess as a Madonna in order to anonymize her, it was hung next to a portrait of Ludwig I when he was a crown prince. The public recognized the motif and was outraged. The portrait of the crown prince, which Nathanael von Schlichtegroll described as a "masterpiece" in a letter to Georg Issel, was then removed.
The excitement over this picture was probably one of the reasons why Ludwig I decided to create a more anonymous gallery, which was first mentioned in 1821. At this point, Stieler, still a court painter without a fixed salary, offered pictures of Madame Lang and an Italian opera singer, Adelaide Schiasetti for Ludwig's collection of beautiful heads. Both works were kept out of the gallery.[4] Ludwig I acquired it in 1823 for the Munich art exhibition. According to the king's will, the gallery was to be primarily a collection of patriotic beauties, although foreign women were also represented; and from their posterity should be able to recognize how the character of female beauty was expressed at that time.[5]
When Ludwig I began his expansion of the Munich Residence in 1826, he planned the rooms in which the collection would be hang. The plan for the rooms called for red and green stucco marble in wide, horizontal layering for the walls, which were to be finished with a base zone of around 80 centimeters. The coffered ceiling and door panels were decorated with tendril ornaments. In 1828, in a letter to Johann Georg von Dillis, he named the first ten works that were to be exhibited in the two conversation rooms under construction:
These ten pictures were also presented to the public in 1829 as part of an art exhibition together with Stieler's portrait of Goethe. Nanette Kaulla's picture was unfinished at this point. Others were added, so that when they moved in in 1835, 17 portraits created over the last eight years or so could be exhibited:
Lola Montez, the mistress of Ludwig I and ultimately the reason for his abdication, was the penultimate subject for Stieler's gallery of beauties.
Over the next 15 years until 1850, Stieler completed the missing 19 portraits and completed his work with the portraits of Lola Montez and Maria Dietsch. Cosmetic corrections were made to the latter because in Stieler's opinion, Dietsch was "not an excellent beauty".
The painter also had difficulties with his penultimate work for the gallery, the portrait of Lola Montez: he feared the reaction of the public, which did not have much use for Montez. Ludwig I had to ask him to paint her several times in 1846. He ended up painting her in the costume of a Spanish dancer, with a relatively bare upper body and a mask in her hand. Ludwig I was outraged by the motif and had it painted again in black velvet. The king was also not enthusiastic about the result of Stieler's work, whose motivation was rather low: "Your brush is getting old", criticized Ludwig I. Stieler replied to the king: "But nice enough for an old brush."[6][7]
When Marianna Marquesa Florenzi from Florence, from whom Ludwig I repeatedly sought advice, including on state matters, was told that the picture of this Lola Montez was now hanging next to her portrait, she categorically demanded that her picture be taken down, and threatened to withdraw her favor from him otherwise.[8]
In 1861, Ludwig I commissioned Stieler's nephew and student Friedrich Dürck (1809–1884) to create two more portraits for the collection. This is how the only two pictures in the collection that did not come directly from Stieler were created: Anna von Greiner and Carlotta von Breidbach-Bürresheim.
Since the ballroom building was destroyed during the Second World War, the collection moved[when?] to the small dining room at Nymphenburg Palace. The original plan was to have them resume their place in the residence soon.[citation needed]
Ludwig I or Louis I was King of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states. When he was crown prince, he was involved in the Napoleonic Wars. As king, he encouraged Bavaria's industrialization, initiating the Ludwig Canal between the rivers Main and the Danube. In 1835, the first German railway was constructed in his domain, between the cities of Fürth and Nuremberg, with his Bavaria joining the Zollverein economic union in 1834. After the July Revolution of 1830 in France, Ludwig's previous liberal policy became increasingly repressive; in 1844, Ludwig was confronted during the Beer riots in Bavaria. During the revolutions of 1848 the king faced increasing protests and demonstrations by students and the middle classes. On 20 March 1848, he abdicated in favour of his eldest son, Maximilian.
The Nymphenburg Palace is a Baroque palace situated in Munich's western district Neuhausen-Nymphenburg, in Bavaria, southern Germany. The Nymphenburg served as the main summer residence for the former rulers of Bavaria of the House of Wittelsbach. Combined with the adjacent Nymphenburg Palace Park it constitutes one of the premier royal palaces of Europe. Its frontal width of 632 m (2,073 ft) even surpasses Versailles.
Franz Xaver Winterhalter was a German painter and lithographer, known for his flattering portraits of royalty and upper-class society in the mid-19th century. His name has become associated with fashionable court portraiture. Among his best known works are Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies in Waiting (1855) and the portraits he made of Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1865).
Joseph Karl Stieler was a German painter. From 1820 until 1855 he worked as royal court painter for the Bavarian kings. He is known for his Neoclassical portraits, especially for the Gallery of Beauties at Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, as well as his emblematic portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven, which has become one of his most famous works.
Princess Alexandra Amalie of Bavaria was a German princess and writer.
Auguste Strobl was a Bavarian beauty of the 19th century. The daughter of a royal chief accountant, she also appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria.
Katerina "Rosa" Botsari was a Greek courtier. She was member of the Souliot Botsaris family. The daughter of Markos Botsaris, she was in the service of Queen Amalia of Greece as well as an admired young woman throughout the European courts; she was immortalised for the 'Gallery of Beauties' of Ludwig I of Bavaria in an 1841 painting by Joseph Stieler. A Damask rose species bred in 1856 was named Rosa Botsaris after her. In 1845 she married prince and general George Caradja.
Princess Maximiliana Josepha Caroline of Bavaria, was a Princess of Bavaria, daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Queen Caroline of Baden.
Friedrich Dürck was a Saxon painter.
Antonietta Cornelia Vetterlein, Baroness von Künsberg, was a Bavarian beauty of the 19th century. She was the granddaughter of Bayreuth Court Gardner Schneider and the daughter of State Councillor Vetterlein. She appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1828.
Maximiliane Borzaga was a Munich beauty of Italian descent, whose portrait was included in the famous Gallery of Beauties of the Bavarian King Ludwig I.
Nanette Kaulla was a Munich beauty of the 19th century. She appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1829. She was also called the "most beautiful Jew in Munich" She was described as pretty, witty and kind.
Amalie von Schintling was a Bavarian beauty of the 19th century. She gained notoriety through her portrait in the Gallery of Beauties in Nymphenburg Palace.
Marquise Irene of Pallavicini or Countess Irene von und zu Arco-Zinneberg was a Hungarian-born palace lady in the court of Munich in the 19th century. She appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1834.
Baroness Mathilde von Jordan was a German noblewoman who appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1837.
Friederica Catharina Sulzer better known for her stage name as Wilhelmine Sulzer was a Munich royal court actress. She appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1838.
Antonia Wallinger was a Munich royal court theater dancer whose portrait was included in the famous Gallery of Beauties of the Bavarian King Ludwig I.
Anna von Greiner was a German woman who appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1861, painted by Joseph Stieler's nephew and pupil Friedrich Dürck.
Countess Carlotta von Boos-Waldeck born as Baroness Carlotta von Breidbach-Bürresheim was a German lady-in-waiting for Grand Duchess Mathilde of Hesse-Darmstadt. She appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1863. Her portrait was the last of the collection for the Gallery.
Caroline Lizius was a German soprano in the Munich court music between 1844 and 1848. She also appeared in the Gallery of Beauties gathered by King Ludwig I of Bavaria in 1842.
↑ Egon Cesar Conte Corti: Ludwig I von Bayern, 1937 zitiert In: Gerhard Hojer: Die Schönheitsgalerie König Ludwigs I. 2. neugestaltete Auflage 1973, Schnell & Steiner, München. S. 19/20 und S. 70.
↑ "Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte – Königreich – Lady Theresa Spence geb. Renard (1837)". Haus der Bayerischen Geschichte. Retrieved 2023-10-30. Von der Porträtierten ist nicht viel bekannt. Auf der Rückseite des Gemäldes, das 1836/37 hergestellt wurde, steht zu lesen: 'Theresa Spence geb. Renard erblickte das Licht der Welt zu Florenz den 18ten Oktober 1815.' [Not much is known about the person portrayed. On the back of the painting, which was made in 1836/37, it reads: 'Theresa Spence née Renard saw the light of day in Florence on the 18th of October 1815.']
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