175 years of Branitz – one park, two perspectives: an exhibition of the earliest photographs of the park and palace in Branitz
About the exhibition
To celebrate 175 years of the Branitz park landscape, the Stiftung Fürst-Pückler-Museum Park und Schloss Branitz is showcasing the earliest photographs of Branitz Park. The park’s creator, Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785–1871), had photographic records produced of some of its most beautiful sections. The twelve photographs feature in a bound album of park landscapes created by Carl von Wieland in 1869, not long before the prince passed away on 4 February 1871. They are the only records that have survived from his lifetime. Such photographs are today not only sought-after collector items. They also afford special significance as authentic contemporary records for research into the park and its preservation. While historical paintings and prints of the park are influenced by the artist’s personal impressions, photographs provide more unfiltered insights into the original buildings and vegetation. The photographs belong to the collection of the Fürst Pückler Museum. In this digital exhibition, they have been complemented with photographs taken in 2021, the anniversary year.
“The plantings are thriving in the extremely favourable weather, so far beyond all expectations, both in the garden and in the woodlands. All of the large trees already bear their full leafage now. Indeed, it seems that nature remains kind to me, as it has in the past, and the sand obliges me, filled with gratitude, to in turn do what it can.”
Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau in a letter to Princess Lucie, 15 May 1847
About Prince Pückler
Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1785-1871) was a status-conscious aristocrat, passionate globetrotter and internationally renowned travel writer. Above all, though, he was a brilliant garden artist. His landscape parks in Bad Muskau, Babelsberg and Branitz laid out according to English models are among the highlights of nineteenth century European landscape design. In 1846, when Pückler was 61 years old, he began to develop and expand the small, older Baroque garden at his ancestral estate in Branitz into a magnificent garden kingdom embellished with man-made hills, criss-crossed by shimmering waterways, dotted with lush meadows, shrubs and clusters of trees, and accessible via a network of paths offering a wealth of views. The prince was extremely open to photography – as he was to all technical innovations – and posed for photographs on numerous occasions.
Carl von Wieland photographed the prince in his Cottbus studio attired in an oriental headpiece and clothing, exactly as he would dress to receive guests at Branitz. A record in the Branitz accounts book documents the payment of 15 thalers to Wieland “for various photographs” in August 1869. Pückler had previously also commissioned other photographers. In December 1860, for example, a photographer named Wilde from Frankfurt am Oder was paid for eleven photographs of Branitz. Unfortunately, their whereabouts are today unknown.
About the album
The bound album that the Stiftung Fürst-Pückler-Museum Park und Schloss Branitz was able to acquire in 2002 bears a magnificent cover in purple velvet with gold embossing. It contains twelve cardboard albumen prints, each of which is edged with narrow gold trim and bears a note scribbled in pencil: (1) Park entrance, (2) Kiosk, (3) Great Greenhouse, (4) Swan House, (5) Reed Lake, (6) Main palace façade, (7) Palace from the west, (8) Cavalier House, (9) Veranda, (10) Pyramid, (11) Forge, (12) Tumulus.
From the mid-nineteenth century, albumen prints became the commonest method of producing photographic prints from a negative. Very thin paper was first coated with an emulsion of albumin (egg white) containing a saline solution. When this paper was then dipped into a solution of silver nitrate, a light-sensitive layer of silver chloride formed in the albumin. The negative was placed directly on the photographic paper and exposed to sunlight until a silver image developed.
Technical imperfections and long exposure times mean the quality of the photographs varies widely. Some photos reveal remarkable details, mostly of a structural nature, like the palace’s chimneys. Others are relatively blurred, incorrectly exposed and have been retouched. At times, it is barely even possible to identify the tree species.
Park map
About the photographer
Carl von Wieland (1801–1874) was born in Gdańsk and raised in Ostritz (Upper Lusatia). He initially studied painting in Dresden, then in Vienna from 1838. Wieland’s name appears among the guests recorded in the palace table books a total of nine times between January 1869 and June 1870. Prince Pückler also supported him by recommending him to Prince Friedrich Carl of Prussia (1828–1885), to whom he introduced him briefly and outlined his biography in an undated letter: “In 1848, he also devoted himself to the art of photography, an undertaking that he continued to pursue in Hamburg from 1850 until 1866. He subsequently moved to Cottbus where he bought a house and has lived ever since. Wieland is a popular photographer and a thoroughly respected, peaceful and well-meaning citizen. His political attitude is far removed from all rebellious democratic activity and he is devoted to the ruling dynasty with genuine patriotism. The enclosed testimonials speak favourably of the character of Mr Wieland so that the gracious bestowing of the title of ‘Court Photographer’ by His Royal Highness Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia really could not be bestowed to one more worthy.” The prince complied with his request and Wieland became his court photographer. However, when he sent the royal warrant on 24 January 1870, he emphasised to Prince Pückler that this title “was conferred alone on the recommendation of Your Serene Highness as, according to official information received previously, von Wieland’s circumstances were not such that conferring of this title would have been justified otherwise!”
1| “Park entrance”
Located on the boundary between the Inner Park and the Outer Park, Cottbus Gatehouse welcomes visitors arriving from Cottbus. It was built in 1848/49 in a classicist style and served to house the gatekeeper, who was also charged with keeping the estate’s pheasants. Up until the 1850s, the area surrounding the gatehouse was used for breeding pheasants. The historical photograph shows three people standing in front of the gate at Cottbus Gatehouse. The man with a rifle on his shoulder is believed to be Richard Eggert, who served as the prince’s huntsman from 1848 and as head forester from 1867. While admission to the park has always been free, visitors still had to obtain an “entrance ticket” from the gatekeeper – at least in the early years.
2 | Kiosk”
When approaching Branitz Palace from the main park, the pathway leads through an arbour bedecked with roses. The gilded bust of the opera singer Henriette Sontag (1803–1854) is displayed at the centre of this arbour, which is also known as a kiosk. With her head slightly bowed, she directs her gaze towards the west side of the palace. The prince’s deep fondness for Sontag with whom he had a brief affair while in London in 1828 and continued to admire explains the prominent positioning of the bust close to the palace in 1861, in clear view of the master of the house. Ceramic garden benches similar to the ones installed in many parks at the time were set out around the bust. The wrought-iron fence marking the boundary between the pleasure ground and the Inner Park can be seen in the background. Two tall flower posts topped with glass baubles stand to the left and right of the kiosk’s entrance. The Rose Arbour is the only kiosk of the many that once graced the pleasure ground to have survived the post-war period.
3 | “Great Greenhouse”
Also known as the Orangery, the Upper House was built in 1848. It marks the entrance to the palace nursery, which featured numerous gardens, a court of cold frames and cultivation areas for flowers and perennial shrubs as well as a tree nursery – and later the “tree university”. The historical photograph reveals structural details that have since been lost due to subsequent alterations: the structure of the glass façade is clearly discernible. An ornate pediment adorns the central entrance. The candelabra lamp post that later stood between the zinc cast lions by the Berlin-based company Devaranne (1850) has not yet been added. The walls of the terrace and ramp are covered in ivy. The greenhouse is still used today for overwintering the orange trees and other exotic potted plants that adorn the palace terrace in the summer months.
4 | “Swan House”
The little house has stood on Fox Island in the middle of Black Lake since 1850. The miniature two-storey “residence” with a low-pitch roof in a typical Alpine architectural style was intended to serve as a shelter for swans. However, it was probably already too small for this purpose back in those days. Today, it is mainly used by ducks and doves. Princess Lucie (1776–1854) had the idea for this little house. Its design was ultimately based on a model that Pückler brought back with him from Salzburg and had reproduced in Branitz. Swan houses were a typical feature of palace gardens in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The filigree façade of the little Swiss cottage can be seen in the photograph. The pyramid poplar in the background shows that the site near the Blue Bridge remains unchanged to this day.
5 | “Reed Lake”
The photographer mistakenly titled this picture “Reed Lake”. However, it is in fact a shot of the area of the park to the north of the palace, overlooking the Palace Lake. Shrubs can be discerned in the foreground (probably peonies), close to the shoreline. The flowering chestnuts on the right indicate that the photographs were taken in May/June 1869. The figure of Venus of Capua can be seen on the island in the middle of the lake. The inspiration for this sculpture came from an antique Roman marble sculpture discovered in the amphitheatre in the Italian city of Capua near Naples in around 1750. In the late 1830s, Karl Friedrich Schinkel recommended that the prince purchase a replica cast from the zinc and iron casting manufacturer Moritz Geiß. Pückler followed the recommendation of his “favourite architect” and already acquired the sculpture for Muskau Park. A bridge can be seen in the background, which was lost when the pleasure ground was redesigned by the prince’s heir, Heinrich Count of Pückler. A seating area can be discerned to the left of the bridge, hidden amidst the reeds and bushes.
6 | “Main palace façade”
The historical photograph shows the eastern entrance to the palace. Plants clamber up the building façade between the windows, all the way to the upper edges of the ground floor. The windows of the basement level are almost entirely concealed behind potted plants. As on the western side of the building, awnings can be seen above several of the windows. The use of these wicker awnings for the Turkish Room, the guest apartments on the upper floor and the salons on the ground floor is also an indication that they were particularly important, sumptuously furnished rooms for which protection was needed from the harsh sunlight. In addition to the garden décor, which includes the vases and candelabra lamp posts on the palace terrace that remain to this day, two floral displays based on a design by Schinkel can be seen. The terrace wall features a rose trellis and the flower borders before it are surrounded by a low box hedge.
7 | “Palace from the west”
In the photograph of the western side of the palace, a flower bed can be seen at the foot of the main steps where the Crown Bed could once be found. Its name derives from the ornamental shape of the bed, which depicted Pückler’s initials and was topped with a prince’s crown. Pückler had an iron trellis in the shape of an ‘S’ (standing for “Schnucke”, the prince’s pet name for Princess Lucie) erected at the centre of this bed for a climbing rose during her lifetime (1776–1854). Clusters of large-leafed plants and an architecturally defined canal outlet can be seen at the edge of the lake.
Beside the two free-standing solitary trees to the south-west of the terrace is a bed of standard roses, which also features in early photographs and is known from the archives. This photo has enabled more precise determination of the flower bed’s location for its restoration.
Hermann von Pückler-Muskau: Hints on Landscape Gardening, 1834
8 | “Cavalier House”
Between 1856 and 1858, Prince Pückler had the single-storey farm buildings dating from the Baroque period that flanked the former palace courtyard converted into the stables and Cavalier House in an English neo-Gothic style. During the prince’s lifetime, his guests and servants resided here, including his secretary Wilhelm Heinrich Masser (known as Billy). Beside the two women in the traditional garb of the Spreewald standing to the left of the entrance, the historical photograph reveals a number of other interesting details: the neo-Gothic window above the door has diamond-shaped leaded glass. The plantings close to the house and the hedges along the pathway show the park’s vegetation, which was originally far more luxuriant, and the princely principle of “planting off” outbuildings so that only glimpses of these could ever be caught.
9 | “Veranda”
Prince Pückler had the Italian Wall built in 1847/48 at the east of the palace, between the stables and Cavalier House, to separate off the work yard that lay beyond it. He complemented the wall with a vine-covered pergola. This intimate area in front of the main entrance formed the pergola garden. During Prince Pückler’s lifetime, it was also referred to as the “veranda”. This part of the pleasure ground was marked off with a small fence and was not accessible to the general public. The Venus bed, which is clearly visible in the historical photograph, formed the central element of the pergola garden. It was the most beautiful flower bed in the pleasure ground. The replica Venus Italica on the lawn in front of the palace steps is based on a design by the Italian sculptor Antonio Canova, whom Pückler visited in his studio in Rome in 1809 during his youthful wanderings. The suggestion to install the sculpture purchased from the Berlin-based company Devaranne in 1850 on a raised pedestal amidst a bed of flowers in front of the palace actually came from Princess Lucie however. The oval bed with the Venus sculpture at its centre was framed by two different groups of zinc cast figures, which will be reconstructed in 2021.
10 | “Pyramid”
After construction of the pyramid in the lake, the tumulus, was completed (1856–1859), the prince had the stepped land pyramid built in 1862/63 “in the style of those in Meroe”. The structure was created by heaping up the earth excavated from the Tumulus Lake on a mound, whereby the intention was probably to create the impression of a monument already half blown away by the desert sand, according to an idea by the garden architect Gustav Meyer. The shrubs visible in the photograph, some of which have today been lost, are of garden monument interest. The photographer retouched this image to add the flagpole with flag. The top of the pyramid is adorned with a lattice fence bearing a saying borrowed from the German romantic writer Jean Paul: “Graves are the mountaintops of a distant new world.”
11 | “Forge”
The Park Forge was built in 1849/50 as the eastern gatehouse to Branitz Park. Prince Pückler described it as a building in a “mixed and yet predominantly Gothic style”. Older designs by the architect Ludwig Persius created for farm buildings on the Muskau estate are believed to have served as the models for this. The prince also drew inspiration from architectural designs in English publications. The architect Johann Heinrich Strack, who also worked on the park in Babelsberg, prepared designs for the forge’s spires in 1849; the colour scheme was determined by the architect Eduard Titz. The building’s structure is reminiscent of the Little Palace in Babelsberg Park, which Prince Pückler began designing in 1843.
12 | “Tumulus”
The final photograph in the album shows the lake pyramid. As early as 1850, Pückler already came upon the idea of building a funeral tumulus for the princess and himself “at the end of the park to be extended towards Cottbus, in the middle of a lake, and in full view of the palace rooms”, as he described it to her. However, it was not until April 1856 that construction of the pyramid began. Having already passed away two years previously, the princess had been buried in the Vorpark. Heaping up of the earth was completed in mid-July. A shaft was built just above the water level to house the prince’s urn after his death. The wild vines were planted in 1859. Work on the Tumulus Lake continued until 1863. The historical photograph suggests work was being carried out near the wooden “pyramid bridge” to landscape the shoreline when the photograph was taken, as a number of stakes are visible. On the horizon to the north, the area where a grove of trees today stands is clear and the views extend all the way to the Vorpark where large solitary trees can be discerned. The tumulus was restored in 2015.
“What becomes of it after our death is entirely irrelevant. Nothing is eternal, but eternal creation is divine. Whether for us or others, it does not matter. And he who seeks only to have an impact for himself has no impact at all. So honour the artist. For he is the best thing about me [...].”
Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau in a letter to Princess Lucie, 1 July 1847
Legal information
The exhibition is presented by: Stiftung Fürst-Pückler-Museum Park und Schloss Branitz (SFPM)
Robinienweg 5
03042 Cottbus
info@pueckler-museum.de
+49 (0) 355 7515-0
The exhibition was created with the module md/story and presented on the platform museum-digital.de
Concept and texts: Luzie Doering, Dr. Christian Katschmanowski, Dr. Simone Neuhäuser, Gina Schultz
Translation: Denise Dewey-Muno
Copyright and rights of use: © SFPM
