Schloss Favorite Rastatt

Description

Schloss Favorite in Rastatt is the former residence of the Margraves of Baden-Baden and an important example of Baroque pleasure architecture.

The pleasure palace in Rastatt-Förch was built from 1710 at the request of Margravine Franziska Sibylla Augusta of Baden-Baden and complemented the court residence in Rastatt as a place for courtly amusements, society, hunting, masquerades, study and child-rearing. Construction continued until around 1730. The building is among the earliest German porcelain palaces and has retained its original form. The interiors house an extraordinary collection of Chinese porcelain, black lacquer works and “Schwartz Porcelain” (stoneware with black-and-gold lacquer painting).

Originally the estate was surrounded by a Baroque pleasure garden with avenues, symmetrical parterres, water features and orangeries; in a nearby pheasantry woodland there were breeding and feeding houses. An hermitage was erected in 1718 as a retreat for the foundress. In the late 18th century the formal Baroque garden was transformed into an English landscape garden with lawns, ponds, vistas and watercourses, which strongly shapes its present appearance.

The three-storey complex encloses a small cour d’honneur with two side wings; colonnades to the east and west served as orangeries. A prominent central risalit with a triangular pediment displays the Baden–Saxony–Lauenburg alliance coat of arms. The fifteen window bays and the colossal pilasters link the ground and upper floors. A sweeping external staircase leads to the bel étage and the state rooms; the ground floor accommodated service rooms and a show kitchen that already impressed visitors during the Margravine’s lifetime.

Inside, the sala terrena determines the spatial arrangement: a rectangular, garden-facing hall that extends over several storeys and is capped by a domed tower; four obliquely set niches articulate the space. On the bel étage an apartment flanks the central hall on each side. Floors of stucco marble, faience tiles, richly decorated stucco and fresco ceilings, embroidered wall hangings and exquisite furniture testify to the craft diversity of the early 18th century.

As a Gesamtkunstwerk, Schloss Favorite represents princely taste and aristocratic self-presentation. The entirely preserved Florentine Cabinet is unique in Europe: 758 pictorial panels, 55 of them from Florence, are executed in the costly commesso technique from multicoloured marble and semi-precious stone slabs, and still impress today with their intensity of colour and technical perfection.

The complex is one of the state-owned monuments and is administered by Staatliche Schlösser und Gärten Baden-Württemberg. The richly decorated rooms and the collection-focused presentation exemplarily convey the forms of chinoiserie and the early 18th-century enthusiasm for Asia by displaying the objects in their historical context.