Royalty : Sanssouci Palace

Sanssouci was the summer palace of Frederick the Great, King of Prussia, in Potsdam, near Berlin. It is often counted among the German rivals of Versailles. While Sanssouci is in the more intimate Rococo style and is far smaller than its French Baroque counterpart, it too is notable for the numerous temples and follies in the park. The palace was designed/built by Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff between 1745 and 1747 to fulfill King Frederick's need for a private residence where he could relax away from the pomp and ceremony of the Berlin court. The palace's name emphasises this; it is a French phrase (sans souci), which translates as "without concerns", meaning "without worries" or "carefree", symbolising that the palace was a place for relaxation rather than a seat of power. The name in past times reflected a play on words, with the insertion of a comma visible between the words Sans and Souci, viz. Sans, Souci. Kittsteiner theorizes that this could be a philosophical play on words, meaning "without a worry/concern" or it could be some secret personal message which nobody has interpreted, left to posterity by Frederick II.

The only portrait Frederick ever personally sat for (by Ziesenis, 1763)

Frederick II (24 January 1712 – 17 August 1786) ruled the Kingdom of Prussia from 1740 until 1786, the longest reign of any Hohenzollern king, at 46 years. His most significant accomplishments during his reign included his military victories, his reorganization of Prussian armies, his patronage of the arts and the Enlightenment and his final success against great odds in the Seven Years' War. Frederick was the last Hohenzollern monarch titled King in Prussia and declared himself King of Prussia after achieving sovereignty over most historically Prussian lands in 1772. Prussia had greatly increased its territories and became a leading military power in Europe under his rule. He became known as Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Große) and was nicknamed Der Alte Fritz ("The Old Fritz") by the Prussian people and eventually the rest of Germany.
Architecture Frederick had many famous buildings constructed in his capital Berlin, most of which still stand today, such as the Berlin State Opera, the Royal Library (today the State Library Berlin), St. Hedwig's Cathedral, and Prince Henry's Palace (now the site of Humboldt University). However, the king preferred spending his time in his summer residence at Potsdam, where he built the palace of Sanssouci, the most important work of Northern German rococo. Sanssouci (French for "carefree" or "without worry"), was a refuge for Frederick. "Frederician Rococo" developed under Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff.

Berlin State Opera

Berlin State Library

St. Hedwig's Cathedral is a Roman Catholic cathedral on the Bebelplatz in Berlin, Germany. It is the seat of the Archbishop of Berlin.

The University of Berlin was established on 16 August 1809, on the initiative of the liberal Prussian educational politician Wilhelm von Humboldt by King Friedrich Wilhelm III, during the period of the Prussian Reform Movement. The university was located in a palace constructed from 1748-1766[ for the late Prince Henry, the younger brother of Frederick the Great.

Hans Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (17 February 1699 – 16 September 1753) was a painter and architect in Prussia.

Frederician Rococo is a form of Rococo, which developed in Prussia during the reign of Frederick the Great and combined influences from France, Germany (especially Saxony) and the Netherlands. Its most famous adherent was the architect Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff. Furthermore, the painter Antoine Pesne and even King Frederick himself influenced Knobelsdorff's designs. Famous buildings in the Frederican style include Sanssouci Palace, the Potsdam City Palace, and parts of Charlottenburg Palace.

Sanssouci is little more than a large, single-story villa—more like the Château de Marly than Versailles. Containing just ten principal rooms, it was built on the brow of a terraced hill at the centre of the park. The influence of King Frederick's personal taste in the design and decoration of the palace was so great that its style is characterised as "Frederician Rococo", and his feelings for the palace were so strong that he conceived it as "a place that would die with him". Because of a disagreement about the site of the palace in the park, Knobelsdorff was fired in 1746. Jan Bouman, a Dutch architect, finished the project.

Frederick the Great's sketch for the plan of Sanssouci was the prototype for the palace (north is at the top). A single enfilade of ten principal rooms forms the south-facing corps de logis. To the north, two segmented colonnades form a cour d'honneur. Two flanking service wings (hidden from view, screened by trees and covered by climbing plants) provide the necessary but mundane domestic offices.

The location and layout of Sanssouci above a vineyard reflected the pre-Romantic ideal of harmony between man and nature, in a landscape ordered by human touch. Winemaking, however, was to take second place to the design of the palace and pleasure gardens. The hill on which Frederick created his terrace vineyard was to become the focal point of his demesne, crowned by the new, but small, palace—"mein Weinberghäuschen" ("my little vineyard house"), as Frederick called it. With its extensive views of the countryside in the midst of nature, Frederick wanted to reside there sans souci ("without a care") and to follow his personal and artistic interests. Hence, the palace was intended for the use of Frederick and his private guests—his sketch (illustration) indicated the balanced suites "pour les etrangers" and "pour le roy"— only during the summer months, from the end of April to the beginning of October.

The New Palace (German: Neues Palais) is a palace situated on the western side of the Sanssouci park in Potsdam, Germany. The building was begun in 1763, after the end of the Seven Years' War, under King Friedrich II (Frederick the Great) and was completed in 1769. It is considered to be the last great Prussian Baroque palace.

Twenty years following his creation of Sanssouci, Frederick built the New Palace (Neues Palais) in the western part of the park. This far larger palace was in direct contrast to the relaxed ethos behind Sanssouci, and displayed Frederick's power and strength to the world, in the Baroque style. The design of the New Palace was intended to demonstrate that Prussia's capabilities were undiminished despite its near defeat in the Seven Years' War. Frederick made no secret of his intention, even referring to the new construction as his "fanfaronnade" ("showing off").

This concept of a grand palace designed to impress has led to the comparison of the palaces of Potsdam to Versailles, with Sanssouci being thrust into the role of one of the Trianons. This analogy, though easy to understand, ignores the original merits of the concept behind Sanssouci, the palace for which the whole park and setting were created. Unlike the Trianons, Sanssouci was not an afterthought to escape the larger palace, for the simple reason that the larger palace did not exist at the time of Sanssouci's conception; and once it did, Frederick almost never stayed in the New Palace except on rare occasions when entertaining diplomats he wished to impress. It is true, however, that Sanssouci was intended to be a private place of retreat rather than display of power, strength and architectural merit. Unlike the Trianons, Sanssouci was designed to be a whole unto itself.

The south facing garden façade. Frederick the Great ignored his architect's advice to place the piano nobile upon a low ground floor. As a result, the palace failed to take maximum advantage of its location. Its windows are devoid of views, and seen from its lower terraces it appears to be more of an orangery than a palace.

Sanssouci is small, with the principal block (or corps de logis) being a narrow single-storey enfilade of just ten rooms, including a service passage and staff rooms behind them. Frederick's amateur sketch of 1745 demonstrates that his architect, Knobelsdorff, was more a draughtsman at Sanssouci than complete architect. Frederick appears to have accepted no suggestions for alteration to his plans, refusing Knobelsdorff's idea that the palace should have a semi-basement storey, which would not only have provided service areas closer at hand, but would have put the principal rooms on a raised piano nobile. This would have given the palace not only a more commanding presence, but also would have prevented the problems of dampness to which it has always been prone.

However, Frederick wanted an intimate palace for living: for example, rather than scaling a large number of steps, he wanted to enter the palace immediately from the garden. He insisted on a building on the ground level, of which the pedestal was the hill: in short, this was to be a private pleasure house. His recurring theme and requirement was for a house with close connections between its style and free nature. The principal rooms, lit by tall slender windows, face south over the vineyard gardens; the north façade is the entrance front, where a semicircular cour d'honneur was created by two segmented Corinthian colonnades.

It was no coincidence that Frederick selected the Rococo style of architecture for Sanssouci. The light, almost whimsical style then in vogue exactly suited the light-hearted uses for which he required this retreat. The Rococo style of art emerged in France in the early 18th century as a continuation of the Baroque style, but in contrast with the heavier themes and darker colours of the Baroque, the Rococo was characterized by an opulence, grace, playfulness, and lightness. Rococo motifs focused on the carefree aristocratic life and on light-hearted romance, rather than on heroic battles and religious figures. They also revolve around natural and exterior settings; this again suited Frederick's ideal of nature and design being in complete harmony. The palace was completed much as Frederick had envisaged in his preliminary sketches (see illustration above).

The palace has a single-storey principal block with two flanking side wings. The building occupies almost the entire upper terrace. The potential monotony of the façade is broken by a central bow, its dome rising above the hipped roof, with the name of the palace—remarkably written with a comma and a full stop—on it in gilded bronze letters. The secondary side wings on the garden front are screened by two symmetrical rows of trees each terminating in free-standing trellised gazebos, richly decorated with gilded ornaments.

Architectural detail from the central bow of the garden façade: Atlas and Caryatids.

The garden front of the palace is decorated by carved figures of Atlas and Caryatids; grouped in pairs between the windows, these appear to support the balustrade above. Executed in sandstone, these figures of both sexes represent Bacchants, the companions of the wine god Bacchus, and originate from the workshop of the sculptor Friedrich Christian Glume. The same workshop created the vases on the balustrade, and the groups of cherubs above the windows of the dome.

By contrast, the north entrance façade is more restrained. Segmented colonnades of 88 Corinthian columns—two deep—curve outwards from the palace building to enclose the semicircular cour d'honneur. As on the south side, a balustrade with sandstone vases decorates the roof of the main corps de logis.

The East Wing. The two service wings, virtually hidden from sight by foliage in the time of Frederick the Great, were remodelled in the 19th century by Frederick William IV, who transformed the palace into a more conventional royal residence for family and court use.

the west wing held the palace kitchen, stables and a remise (coach house).

The Arm Chair Frederick died in

Frederick regularly occupied the palace each summer throughout his lifetime, but after his death in 1786 it remained mostly unoccupied and neglected until the mid-19th century. In 1840, 100 years after Frederick's accession to the throne, his great-grand nephew Frederick William IV and his wife moved into the guest rooms. The royal couple retained the existing furniture and replaced missing pieces with furniture from Frederick's time. The room in which Frederick had died was intended to be restored to its original state, but this plan was never executed because of a lack of authentic documents and plans. However, the armchair in which Frederick had died was returned to the palace in 1843.

The North Entrance to Sanssouci

In the Baroque tradition, the principal rooms (including the bedrooms) are all on the piano nobile, which at Sanssouci was the ground floor by Frederick's choice. While the secondary wings have upper floors, the corps de logis occupied by the King occupies the full height of the structure. Comfort was also a priority in the layout of the rooms. The palace expresses contemporary French architectural theory in its apartement double ideals of courtly comfort, comprising two rows of rooms, one behind the other. The main rooms face the garden, looking southwards, while the servant's quarters in the row behind are on the north side of the building. An apartement double thus consists of a main room and a servant's chamber. Doors connect the apartments with each other. They are arranged as an "enfilade", so that the entire indoor length of the palace can be assessed at a glance. Frederick sketched his requirements for decoration and layout, and these sketches were interpreted by artists such as Johann August Nahl, the Hoppenhaupt brothers, the Spindler brothers and Johann Melchior Kambly, who all not only created works of art, but decorated the rooms in the Rococo style. While Frederick cared little about etiquette and fashion, he also wanted to be surrounded by beautiful objects and works of art. He arranged his private apartments according to his personal taste and needs, often ignoring the current trends and fashions. These "self-compositions" in Rococo art led to the term "Frederician Rococo". The principal entrance area, consisting of two halls, the "Entrance Hall" and the "Marble Hall", is at the centre, thus providing common rooms for the assembly of guests and the court, while the principal rooms flanking the Marble Hall become progressively more intimate and private, in the tradition of the Baroque concept of state rooms. Thus, the Marble Hall was the principal reception room beneath the central dome. Five guest rooms adjoined the Marble Hall to the west, while the King's apartments lay to the east - an audience room, music room, study, bedroom, library, and a long gallery on the north side.

Floor Plan of Sanssouci (revised by Chris McLaughlin 2020)

The palace is generally entered through the Entrance Hall, where the restrained form of the classical external colonnade was continued into the interior.

The walls of the rectangular room were subdivided by ten pairs of Corinthian columns made of white stucco marble with gilded capitals.

Three overdoor reliefs with themes from the myth of Bacchus reflected the vineyard theme created outside. Georg Franz Ebenhech was responsible for gilded stucco works.

The strict classical elegance was relieved by a painted ceiling executed by the Swedish painter Johann Harper

depicting the goddess Flora with her acolytes, throwing flowers down from the sky.

Skulptur der Agrippina im Vestibül

Marble columns in Sanssouci

The principal entrance area, consisting of two halls, the "Entrance Hall" and the "Marble Hall", is at the centre, thus providing common rooms for the assembly of guests

The white-and-gold oval Marmorsaal ("Marble Hall"), as the principal reception room, was the setting for celebrations in the palace

its dome crowned by a cupola

White Carrara marble was used for the paired columns, above which stucco putti dangle their feet from the cornice.

The dome is white with gilded ornament

the floor is of Italian marble intarsia inlaid in compartments radiating from a central trelliswork oval

Three arch-headed windows face the garden

in two niches flanking the doorway, figures of Venus Urania, the goddess of free nature and life

Venus Urania

Venus in The Gold Hall Sanssouci

facing north in the Gold Marble Room Sanssouci

Apollo, the god of the arts, by the French sculptor François Gaspard Adam, established the iconography of Sanssouci as a place where art was joined with nature.

Apollo in The Gold Hall at Sanssouci

Three Cherubs in The Marmorsaal at Sanssouci

Detail Gold Gilded freeze work in the dome in the Marmorsaal at Sanssouci

Doors in the marble hall Sanssouci

Marmorsaal at Sanssouci

Marmorsaal at Sanssouci moving into the dining/ reception room

Third from the left, in the purple coat, is Voltaire; next to him in the red uniform Christoph Ludwig von Stille, then the king Frederick the Great. The other guests are Giacomo Casanova, Jean-Baptiste Boyer d'Argens, La Mettrie, the Keiths (James Francis Edward Keith & George Keith, 10th Earl Marischal), Friedrich Rudolf von Rothenburg, and Francesco Algarotti.

The king lessened the guests allowance of sugar and chocolate; and the guest stole the kings wax candles. Voltaire laughed at the sovereigns verses, and the would-be poet accused him of stealing the precious collection. Thus came to an end the friendship of Frederick the Great with Voltaire; and in some-what similar fashion ended most of his friendships. In this picture Frederick is shown sitting with his back to the door at the farther end of the table and talking with Voltaire, who is the second figure on the kings right. At the left of the king sits Field Marshal Keith, a brave Scotchman who was one of Fredericks most intimate friends. In the fore-ground are La Mettrie and Marquis d Argens, two French philosophers and critics. Count Rothenburg, and other persons celebrated in their day. Voltaire is replying to a remark of the young king, and the party is waiting with evident interest for a bon mot or for one of those delicate flatteries in which the great Frenchman so excelled. When the Seven Years War had come to an end, m 1763,there was on the surface little to encourage literature. War-fare is always expensive, and the country had been much impoverished. On the other hand, so energetic a ruler as Frederick the Great could not fail to arouse in his subjects an ardent desire for progress, advancement, and knowledge. The heroic struggle of Prussia had led to a revival of national feeling such as had not existed for centuries, and this in turn resulted in such an outburst of writing as has seldom been seen. Authors arose almost by the hundred,eager to free themselves from superstition, from the tyranny of the thoughts of others, and in short from anything approaching to law in literary composition. What resulted was, of German literature, the Sturm und Drang (storm and stress) period, as it was called. This covered some tenor twelve years near the end of the eighteenth century.The greatest of these writers were Goethe

The adjoining room served as both an audience room and the Dining Room. It is decorated with paintings by French 18th-century artists, including Jean-Baptiste Pater, Jean François de Troy, Pierre-Jacques Cazes, Louis Silvestre, and Antoine Watteau..

However, here, as in the majority of the rooms, the carved putti, flowers and books

Music Room of Frederick the great

Frederick was a patron of music as well as a gifted musician who played the transverse flute. He composed more than 100 sonatas for the flute as well as four symphonies. The Hohenfriedberger Marsch, a military march, was supposedly written by Frederick to commemorate his victory in the Battle of Hohenfriedberg during the Second Silesian War. His court musicians included C. P. E. Bach, Johann Joachim Quantz, Carl Heinrich Graun and Franz Benda. A meeting with Johann Sebastian Bach in 1747 in Potsdam led to Bach's writing The Musical Offering.

Music Room of Frederick the great see Frederick's flute on the piano

Music Room of Frederick the great

Music Room of Frederick the great observe fredericks music stand lite by tapers.

Music Room of Frederick the great

Music Room of Frederick the great Mantle

Music Room of Frederick the great detail

Music Room of Frederick the great detail ceiling

Music Room of Frederick the great detail west wall

Music Room of Frederick the great detail west wall doors entering the dining room

"The Flute Concert of Sanssouci" by Menzel, 1852, depicts Frederick the Great playing the flute in his music room at Sanssouci.

Middle: Frederick the Great; far right: Johann Joachim Quantz, the king's flute teacher; to his left with a violin and wearing dark clothing: Franz Benda; left most in the foreground: Gustav Adolf von Gotter; behind him: Jakob Friedrich von Bielfeld; behind him, looking at the ceiling: Pierre Louis Maupertuis; in the background, sitting on a pink sofa: Wilhelmine of Bayreuth; on her right: Amalie of Prussia with a maid of honor; behind them, Carl Heinrich Graun; the elderly lady behind the music stand: Sophie Caroline; behind her: Egmont of Chasot; at the harpsichord: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach.

Frederick’s Study and Bed Chamber at Sanssouci

The King's study and bedroom, remodelled after Frederick's death by Frederick William von Erdmannsdorff in 1786, is now in direct contrast to the rococo rooms. Here, the clean and plain lines of classicism now rule. However, Frederick's desk and the armchair in which he died were returned to the room in the middle of the 19th century. Portraits and once missing pieces of furniture from Frederick's time have also since been replaced.

Death chair and quatre pied in the bedroom and study of Frederick the Great, view of the alcove

Alcove in Frederick II bedroom at Sanssouci

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci Clock

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci Ceiling is a calender of the zodiac

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci Zodiac relief on ceiling

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci west wall

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci west wall hand painted trim

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci west wall picture taken in 1990

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci North wall picture taken 1990

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci west wall

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci west wall observe portrait of Friedrich der Große by Anton Graff's regarded as his masterpiece. Contemporaries claimed it was the best and most accurate portrait of Frederick the Great. It is the most famous, most copied and most reproduced portrait of the King of Prussia. hanging over desk

Detail Fredericks Bedroom Sanssouci unknown date of picture