One of Several Renditions of Apollo on the Palace Ceilings
Molsdorf
Palace
Molsdorf Palace near Erfurt started as a defensive castle built in the 1500's, complete with a moat. But in the early 18th century, a commoner, Gustav Adolph von Gotter, who had enjoyed great success in the court of Frederick the Great and had been raised up into the aristocracy, bought the castle and completely transformed it into a pleasure palace. A rumored lover of the gay Frederick the Great, Gotter retired from court at only forty years of age in 1733, and poured money into his new building project. He is said to have spent over three million Taler on the rebuilding. For this project which he drew on his excellent contacts at court, recruiting Thuringia's leading Baroque architect Gottfried Heinrich Krohne, the Prussian court painter Antoine Pesne, the painters Johann Kupetzky and Jacob Samuel Beck and the stucco artist Johann Baptist Pedrozzi. Their collective efforts resulted in one of the most beautiful baroque palaces in Thuringia, and it remained unaltered until the early 20th century. The palace was only half the picture, for it was designed to open out onto elaborately formal French gardens. The gardens were decorated with over 150 larger than life, sometimes erotic, sculptures. But few of these remain today, having been sold off one by one. For despite frequent disbursements from the Royal Treasury to Gotter from Frederick the Great, and the fact that Gotter won millions in the Prussian State Lottery not once, but twice... Gotter was permanently lacking funds and was forced to sell the palace just fifteen years after building it, in 1748.
The palace's new owner also found the upkeep of the formal gardens too financially strenuous, and bit by bit they were converted to the twenty acres of natural landscape you find today. One side of the palace gives out over a large open lawn, and the other side used to look out over the Gera valley, before the autobahn was came through in the 1930's. Today, on the far side of the autobahn, you can still find the boulevard of trees that used to lead up to the palace, as well as the iron entrance gates.
The Marble Hall
The rooms at Schloss Molsdorf were arranged in an unique manner that provided much more privacy than was usual in an aristocratic household. Thus, unusually, the Marble Hall at the center of the South wing was used for receptions. It also provided access to the adjoining rooms. It derives its name from the contemporary fashion for finishing interiors in pale gray stucco, called stuccolustro. This ceiling fresco attributed to Antoine Pesne, features the young God Apollo heralding the dawn. It was a copy of the same motif that Pesne had painted in about 1741 for Frederick the Great on a ceiling at Rheinsberg Palace. Frederick was still crown prince at the time, and the painting of the god of health and light, symbolized Frederick's hopes for a golden reign. For a former commoner such as Gotter to select such a regal motif for his own stately home indicates considerable self-confidence on Gotter's part.
The Banqueting Hall
This festive hall in the southwest corner of the palace doubled as a dining room. To create a warmer atmosphere and soundproof the room, Gotter had the walls fitted with wood paneling in stark contrast to early 18th century fashion. Thirty-three portraits of Gotter's former patrons and supporters are inset in these panels, testifying to his special position at court. These portraits substituted for the ancestral galleries normally used by noble dynasties to parade their history, skillfully touching over Gotter's bourgeois origins.
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Palace Museum
Tuesday-Sunday 10 am - 6 pm
Guided Tours on the Hour
20:27 13.07.2007
A Portrait of Gotter in his Fifties Dressed as a Religious Pilgrim
