Ludwigslust Palace (German : Schloss Ludwigslust) is a stately home or schloss in the town of Ludwigslust, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, northern Germany. It was built as a hunting lodge and rebuilt as a retreat from the ducal capital, Schwerin, then became from 1765 to 1837 the center of government. It was the joy of Prince Christian Ludwig, the heir of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, hence the name Ludwigslust.
Ludwigslust had its origins in a simple hunting lodge within a day's ride (36 km) of the ducal capital, Schwerin. In 1724, Prince Christian Ludwig, the heir of the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, decided to build a hunting lodge on this site, near a hamlet called Klenow. Even after he became the reigning duke in his turn in 1747, he passed most of his time at this residence, which he called Ludwigslust ("Ludwig's joy").
In 1765, Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin made Ludwigslust the capital of the duchy instead of Schwerin. Consequently, the little town that had already grown in the service of the schloss was further expanded, and a cornerstone for a new, grander residenz was laid directly behind the old hunting box in 1768. [1] In the years 1772–1776, Ludwigslust was rebuilt to plans by Johann Joachim Busch. The Late Baroque schloss is built on an E-plan foundation, with a higher projecting central corps de logis in three bays, which appears to penetrate its wings from front to rear; the richer Corinthian order of the central block contrasts with the Ionic of the wings. On the urban side, the central block makes some compromises with the new neoclassical style in the flat planes of the façade, which simply occupies one flank of the square centered on it, without embracing the space in a cour d'honneur (illustration, below left) and in the severe Doric portico. The structure is brick, clad in the local sandstone; forty over-lifesize allegorical figures, also in sandstone, by Rudolf Kaplunger, alternating with vases, crown the low attic above the cornice. [2]
The interiors of Ludwigslust are more fully neoclassical. The grand reception rooms are on the piano nobile , or Festetage ("Reception floor"), above a low ground floor that contained guestrooms. The Goldener Saal ("Gilded Hall") in the central block rises through two storeys, with a colossal order of Corinthian columns and massive decorations carried out in stucco and the innovative moldable and modelable paper-maché called Ludwigsluster Carton; it is used today for summertime concerts. One flanking range was semi-public, with a sequence of antechamber, salon and audience chamber, and a gallery. The opposite range was semi-private, with the Duke's drawing-room and bedchamber (hung with framed miniatures), a cabinet and a gallery with a porcelain chimneypiece.
The schloss was the center-point of a range of grand buildings sited in deference to it, including the Hofkirche that served as the court chapel. A central avenue through the town was laid out, centered on the schloss; on the garden side, the axis was carried through as the Hofdamenallee ("Court ladies' allée"), a central ride through the enclosing woodland, still reaching the slightly elevated wooded horizon today.
The palace's surrounding Schlosspark of 120 ha. was laid out with formal canals, fountains and a frankly artificial cascade, tamed of all the wildness that a later, Romantic generation would venerate; it was built according to sketches by the French architect Jean-Laurent Le Geay, who had laid out the formal garden at Schwerin in 1749–55, but was quickly overtaken at Ludwigslust by his assistant, Johann Joachim Busch, who began the work in 1763. [3] The trees laid out in the pattern and at the scale of Bernini's colonnades in Piazza San Pietro have disappeared, but there are the neoclassical stone bridge designed by Busch about 1780, with a cascade that falls across a lip so perfectly regular that it has the name Der Waltze (the "Roll"), a grotto built as a ruin, a Gothic chapel, two mausoleums [4] and a monument to a favourite horse. [5]
In 1837, Grand Duke Paul Friedrich returned Schwerin to its capital status. As a summer residence, Schloss Ludwigslust was preserved from further alterations. In the mid-nineteenth century, much of the park was re-landscaped in the more naturalistic English landscape garden manner, under the direction of a garden designer with an extensive clientele among the German aristocracy, Peter Joseph Lenné. [6] Water near the schloss was recast in more naturalistic manner and the surrounding woodland edges were varied, with clumps of trees as outliers, but the main axia Hofdamenallee centered on the palace, still stretches dead straight through the woods, and the narrow Great Canal, laid out at an angle to one side, still extends a kilometer and a half.
The deposed Mecklenburg-Schwerin family continued to use Ludwigslust until 1945. Today, it houses the Staatliches Museum Schwerin/Ludwigslust/Güstrow (the "State Museum of Schwerin/Ludwigslust/Güstrow"), with a collection of paintings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry and busts by Jean Antoine Houdon [8] that represent the tastes of the Mecklenburg dukes.
In 1844, William Makepeace Thackeray set a high-living episode of his amoral eighteenth-century hero Barry Lyndon at Ludwigslust, where Barry, pursuing a countess, is accompanied by a black page named Zamor who is dressed in Turkish attire, and his pavilion is "fitted up in the Eastern manner, very splendid. [9]
53°19′29″N11°29′17″E / 53.32472°N 11.48806°E
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Schwerin is the capital and second-largest city of the northeastern German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern as well as of the region of Mecklenburg, after Rostock. It has around 96,000 inhabitants, and is thus the least populous of all German state capitals.
Ludwigslust is a central castle town of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany, 40 km south of Schwerin. Since 2011 it has been part of the Ludwigslust-Parchim district.
Güstrow is a town in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in north-eastern Germany. It is capital of the Rostock district; Rostock itself is a district-free city and regiopolis.
Paul Friedrich ruled as Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1837 to 1842.
Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was Queen of Denmark from 1912 to 1947, as well as Queen of Iceland from 1918 to 1944 as the spouse of King Christian X.
Adolphus Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg, was the first Duke of the Mecklenburg-Strelitz, reigning from 1701 until his death. Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a part of the Holy Roman Empire.
Christian Ludwig II was the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1747 to 1756.
Frederick Francis II was a Prussian officer and Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 7 March 1842 until 15 April 1883.
Frederick Francis III was the penultimate Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Jean-Laurent Le Geay was a French neoclassical architect with an unsatisfactory career largely spent in Germany. His artistic personality remained shadowy until recently, though he was allowed to have had numerous pupils among the avant-garde of neoclassicism. He won the Prix de Rome in architecture in 1732, which, after an unaccountable delay, sent him for study to the French Academy in Rome from December 1738 to January 1742, when the Director, Jean François de Troy, remarked of him on his departure "il y a du feu et du génie". After he returned to Paris, there is no record of him, but about 1745 he was in Berlin, where he published eight etchings (1747–48) of plans and elevations for St Hedwig's Church, Berlin, which he produced in collaboration with Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff, until recently the chief architect to Frederick II of Prussia; the church was eventually built to a modified version of the plan, by Johann Boumann, from June 1748, and Johann Gottfried Büring, in 1772–3.
Duchess Helene of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a French Crown Princess after her marriage in 1837 to the eldest son of Louis Philippe I. She is known as the mother of the future Count of Paris and Duke of Chartres.
The Staatliches Museum Schwerin is an art gallery and museum in Schwerin in Germany. It was established by Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in 1882 its historicist Haupthaus as the Staatsgalerie next to the Staatstheater. Its other locations are opposite the Schweriner Schloss and in the former residences at Schloss Güstrow and Schloss Ludwigslust.
Princess Augusta Reuss, Junior Line was Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin as the first spouse of Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
Duke Christian Louis of Mecklenburg was the second son of the last reigning Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Frederick Francis IV.
Duchess Marie Louise of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was the Duchess of Saxe-Altenburg. She was daughter of Frederick Louis, Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna of Russia. In 1825, she married Georg, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, and became his consort.
Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was heir to the Dukedom of Mecklenburg-Schwerin for twenty-two years from 1756 to his death in 1778. He was also the father of the first Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Frederick Francis I.
Frederick II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, called the Pious was Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin from 1756 until his death.
Güstrow Palace is a Renaissance-era palatial schloss in Güstrow, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Germany, used as a museum and cultural centre.
Duke Gustav Wilhelm of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a member of the German grand ducal house of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.
