The Marble Bath Building
The Marmorbad Next to the Orangery in the Karlsaue Park in Kassel

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This unusual building was built as a stately bathroom between 1722 and 1728 under the Landgrave Karl (1654 - 1730).  It was designed as a separate pavilion alongside the Orangery, the new palace built from 1702 by the Landgrave as a summer residence on the Fulda river floodplain. The MArble Bath House (das Marmorbad) is one of the finest surviving late Baroque specimens of royal ceremonial bathing.  The large central bathtub in the middle is surrounded by marble sculptures and bas-reliefs that narrate scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses, including Daphne as she changes into a bay tree.  The bay trees in the Orangery are a reference to this tale and their presence was obligatory.   The Landgrave Karl recruited the Roman sculptor Pierre Etienne Monnot (1657 - 1733), one of the most celebrated sculptors of the late 17th century to execute the interior designs.  Monnot has created a striking fiend experience with his virtuoso marble sculpture and bas-reliefs. The sensuality of Monnot's figures which shimmer like velvet, is reinforced by their fine framing against wall panels made of different colored marbles and polished using a lavish technique for greater shine and depth.  Even today, upon interning this palatial bathhouse, visitors are transported to an enchanted ancient world.  Exploring this magnificent place of ceremonial bathing we are still captivated by scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses.

The sculptor and interior architect of the marble bath house, Pierre Etienne Monnot, lived in Kassel from 1714 to 1729. In 1692 in Rome, long before the first contract for the marble bath house was signed, he had begun work on the series of statue groups which he was later to sell the Landgrave Karl.  In addition to these ten statue groups representing popular figures of Greek and Roman mythology, which were described in 1715 is having already been completed, four large wall reliefs were commissioned by the Landgrave which corresponded with the concept of a bathhouse from classical antiquity and which made reference to the surrounding park landscape and its watercourses. These large wall reliefs show episodes that involve water from the "Metamorphoses", a famous work of the ancient Roman poet Ovid. 

In 1714, he sculpted two busts of the Landgrave and his late wife.  And the first contract also included the cupola reliefs with portrayals of the four elements and the four seasons, as well as a portrait of Landgrave Karl being presented by allegorical figures which represent two virtues.  All of the wall reliefs were created in Monnot's workshop in Kassel where, in addition to other employees, a brother and a son of Monnot also worked.