The
Marble Bath Building |
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The Marmorbad Marble Bath Building in Kassel![]() Narcissus and Cupid If you shop at
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![]() Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel surrounded by allegories of the virtues 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.
Historical BackgroundThe marble bath was commissioned by Landgrave Karl of Hesse (Hessen)-Kassel (1654- 1730, Landgrave from 1677). He also commissioned the Hercules, Kassel's famous landmark on the hill above the city with the cascading fountains below, which was erected from 1701 -- 1717. The bathhouse stands next to the Orangery in a park called the Karlsaue. This park was designed to line up with the Orangery which was built from 1702 -- 1711. The pavilion for the Marble Bath was added later from 1722 to 1728. Surviving plans from 1705 which pertain to the layout of the Karlsaue show that the original plans called for a large landscaped square on the park side of the Orangery, bordered by a total of ten pavilions, five on each side. This design was no doubt based upon the French king Louis XIV's pleasure gardens, Marly-le-Roi, which had six pavilions positioned on each side and in front of a central building. In Kassel only one of the planned pavilions -- the one for the Marble Bath -- was built during the Landgrave's reign. Later (1765 -- 1770) a second pavilion was built on the opposite side, called the kitchen pavilion. At about this time the park was transformed into a more relaxed English landscape garden but the basic underlying arrangement of the park with its avenues and watercourses was retained. In World War II, the Orangery was destroyed and had to be rebuilt. But the Marble Bath beside it only suffered slight damage. After extensive restoration work, one of the most important collections of nonreligious Roman sculpture from the beginning of the 18th century was once again made available to the public. Text continues below ![]() The tub is set in the floor
under the central pavillion like structure. The
circular
space around it is a "perambulatory" used for walking indoors in a circle. The Landgrave was apparently continuing an existing tradition when he had the marble bath house built, because a functional bath house had earlier been erected by the Landgrave William IV some time after 1570, and stood in just about the same area as the current bath house, until it was torn down in 1650. But when compared with this older bathhouse and other bathing arrangements of later Hessian Landgraves and Electors, the Marble Bath House is different in two important ways. On the one hand, you cannot actually take a bath in the Marble Bath House. Yes, it has a tub, but there are no resting or changing rooms which are usually required in a bathhouse, and much more importantly, there is no way to heat the water. Not that you could actually get the water to the top in the first place, since there are neither pipes nor drains. In fact, the fixtures which do exist, the taps etc., are only imitations. Great effort was made to complete the model bathhouse by the end of July 1729. Because that was when George II, Electo of the German state of Hannover and King of Great Britain and Ireland was staying in Kassel. This was probably the only time that Landgrave's Karl actually saw the bathhouse being used in the splendid court ceremonies because he died shortly thereafter. The question remains whether there was any original intention of actually using the bathhouse for bathing. There certainly could not have been any obstacles of a technical nature. It could have easily been supplied with water for nearby was the cascading fountains of the hill called the Karlsberg. From the point of view of hydraulic engineering these cascading fountains were the height of baroque fountain building science. Text Continues Below ![]() The little faun Ampelos reaches for a bunch of grapes held by Bacchus 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. ![]() The allegory of peace hovers above the portrait medallion of Maria Amalie of Hesse-Kassel held up by the virtues. Home |
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