Queen Luise at Paretz Manor

Paretz Manor in Havelland is synonymous with Queen Luise of Prussia, who spent the most fulfilling summers of her life there. 

Because of Luise's resistance to Napoleon and her early death – heroes die young, and she lived only 34 years - the queen was soon ennobled the German Joan of Arc.

   

Paretz Manor today

From 1797 to 1804, Architect David Gilly designed and executed the manor and village of Paretz as a summer residence with high aesthetic standards for Crown Prince Frederick William (III) and his wife, Luise.

The Royal Country Manor in Paretz in 1805 by Franz Hillner.
The royal couple is seen with some members of the court.
I identify the man with a walking stick approaching the group as David Gilly.

The crown prince inculcated his architect, "Just always think that you are building for a poor landowner." So Gilly kept the construction of the manor simple.

The lady of the house. Unknown painter. Queen Luise after 1810

The crown princess was immediately fond of the place and wrote to her father, "I can't wait to go to Paretz."

   

Today Paretz is supported by the Prussian Palaces and Gardens Foundation.

Later in his Walks through the March of Brandenburg, Theodor Fontane called Paretz the still-in-the-country manor.

The Paretz domain: Manor and village

As a prime example of Prussian rural architecture around 1800, the ensemble fulfilled both the desire for a royal country residence and the requirements of a functioning farming village. It blends harmoniously into the broad landscape along the Havel River, in the secluded idyll of the peaceful Havelland, 

Queen Luise and her family enjoyed those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, although not those of soda and pretzels and beer but those of bourgeois family life. Far from courtly etiquette and the pomp and pageantry of the Prussian residential city of Berlin, they enjoyed a life in Paretz that became a model for an entire generation in a time of profound change.

Entering the manor through the entrance hall

View through the suite of rooms in the entrance wing.

View through the suite of rooms in the residential wing.

The royal music room. Note the painted wallpapers in the various rooms.

The royal chamber pot is one of the few preserved original items.

The royal reading room.

A masterpiece of the Royal Porcelain Manufactory founded in 1753 by Frederick the Great.
The vase shows Paretz Manor.

Breakfast will soon be served.

Look into the park or rather the countryside behind the manor.

Look out of the front door in the direction of the "dead churchyard."

Why "dead churchyard? When Paretz was built, the old churchyard lay directly within the view of the royal living room. So from 1800 onwards, on the demand of the royal couple, burials were only allowed without gravestones.

Paretz church

And it had changed entirely when Fontane visited Paretz, "Around the church lies a so-called, "dead churchyard;" the "living" one, the place where people are buried, lies outside, on the edge of the village"... Paretz is a place of remembrance and reverence, even the "dead churchyard." He indeed referred to Luise.

  

The interior of the little village church is simple, but it houses the most important monument to Queen Luise, her Apotheosis, a terracotta relief by Johann Gottfried Schadow.

Luise glorified, deified, ennobled, you name it.

Fontane was not impressed: "The 'King's Chair' is separated from the nave by a balustrade. It has the dimensions of a small room; the furnishing is simple; on the west wall rises ... a work by Schadow, which has become known through the engraving, 'The Apotheosis of Queen Luise.' More peculiar than beautiful."

*