Newly stagedFrederick the Great at Charlottenburg Palace

This permanent exhibition, newly designed and revised, focuses on Frederick the Great (1712-1786) as builder and commissioner of the New Wing, presenting this important monarch of Prussian-German and European history in a way that extends beyond common clichés. The realization of this project has been made possible due to generous support from the Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin (DKLB).

In each of the 16 rooms on the upper floor, visitors will get to know a different facet of the king. In such a way, the function of Charlottenburg as the site of court festivities will become clear, the monarch’s sometimes troublesome relationships to his court artists are discussed, and explanations will be given as to how and by whom the notion of a thrifty and self-sacrificial monarch was actually propagated. In addition, the show also looks into the question concerning how the king actually transacted his purchases of art. But a theme is made as well of the photo documentation that encompassed all of the ceiling paintings executed by Antoine Pesne (1683-1757), this work having been completed two weeks before the ceilings were ultimately destroyed in the winter of 1943.

Sumptuous Rococo

Only two months after Frederick the Great ascended the throne, he instructed that the cornerstone be laid for the first palace building of his reign: the New Wing at Charlottenburg. Under the aegis of Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff (1699-1753), apartments were built for the young king and his consort Elisabeth Christine (1715-1797), but most significantly, two new banqueting halls were built there, since Frederick primarily used the New Wing for family festivities. It was mainly for the occasions of the weddings of his siblings, nieces and nephews that the king held lavish celebrations at Charlottenburg.

Following the heavy damages suffered during World War II and the subsequent rebuilding, a decision was taken to reconstruct most of these Friderician interiors. Whereas a substantial portion of the high quality paintings that Frederick used to adorn the concert room and the Gris-de-Lin-Chamber have come down to us today, all of the furniture dating from Friderician times had already been removed from Charlottenburg in the 19th century. Nevertheless, in order that visitors be able to experience these interiors again, the rooms have been appointed with furniture that survived, but was commissioned originally by Frederick for the Potsdam City Palace, which had been just as heavily damaged and subsequently torn down. This palace had been built between 1745 and 1747, and thus exactly at the time when the second residential apartment of the King here in the New Wing was furnished. Also in terms of their functional uses, the rooms of the Friderician apartments at Charlottenburg and Potsdam matched completely. At the same time, most of the paintings belonging to the original Friderician decoration are now again on display in the rooms where it is known that they hung from the very beginning. Hence, for visitors, a “viewing experience” is created, which largely corresponds with the situation as it was in the 18th century and which conveys an impression of Friderician court culture.