Ludwigsburg Palace

Ludwigsburg Palace, known natively as Residenzschloss Ludwigsburg and as the "Versailles of Swabia," is a 452-room Baroque, Rococo, Neoclassical and Empire palace complex on a 32-hectare (79-acre) estate located in Ludwigsburg, Germany. The residential palace is one of the largest in Germany and the only one from the Baroque period to not endure any damage during the Second World War. Within its preserved rooms is one of the largest collections of Baroque art and furnishing on the continent. In 2016, the palace attracted some 330,000 visitors and brought as many as 311,000 by October 2017. Surrounding the castle on three sides is the Blooming Baroque (German: Blühendes Barock) garden that was arranged in 1954 as it would have appeared in 1800 for the palace's 250th anniversary and Schloss Favorite, an unattached lustschloss on the grounds of the residential palace.

Construction on the main palace began in 1704 by order of Duke Eberhard Louis and lasted until 1733 under architects Philipp Joseph Jenisch, Johann Friedrich Nette, Donato Giuseppe Frisoni, Philippe de La Guêpière and later Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret, who modified parts of the palace complex for King Frederick I of Württemberg. In totality, construction cost the Duchy of Württemberg 3,000,000 florins. Eberhard Louis also built Schloss Favorite from 1717 to 1723 to serve the Residenzschloss's original function as a hunting retreat. From 1758, the palace hosted a porcelain manufactory that produced a unique grey-brown colored porcelain, but it closed down in 1824.

By March 2020, the Baden-Württemberg State Agency for Palaces and Gardens hopes to have spent four million euros to source or restore some 500 paintings, 400 pieces of furniture and 500 lamps, clocks, and sculptures so as to arrange the entire New Hauptbau to appear as it would have looked in the reign of King Frederick I. Using inventory lists from the 19th century, palace staff are arranging the New Hauptbau to its Classical-era appearance and acquiring items from the palace that were present on location in the mid-19th century. Around 500 paintings, 400 pieces of furniture and 500 miscellaneous items (candlesticks, clocks, busts, etc.) will be acquired to decorate the 35 accessible rooms of the New Hauptbau.

History

Background

In the 17th century, the land that Ludwigsburg Palace was to occupy was a hunting property with a lustschloss called the Erlachhof, which was destroyed by French troops in 1692 during the Nine Years' War. In the spring of 1700, Duke Eberhard Louis tasked his then court architect Matthias Weiss, a military architect, with the Erlachhof's replacement with a new lustschloss. The duke then went on a tour of England and Holland for inspiration. Weiss planned and began construction of a three-story manor but was interrupted by the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession. The war culminated in the decisive Battle of Blenheim, where Eberhard Louis commanded a cavalry regiment. Dreaming of his own absolutist state, he felt inspired by the palaces of Munich where he spent the remainder of 1705 into early 1706. Eberhard Louis now decided to build one of his own and a new township to match, that would capture his prestige and hopefully win him the coveted title of Elector.

The Erlachhof's reconstruction gave Eberhard Louis a pretext for this new palace, so he renamed the estate after himself (German: Ludwigsburg, lit. 'Louis's Castle'), and the Duke began educating himself on the architectural trends of his day. The massive undertaking of the palace's construction eventually necessitated the building of a city, which would also be known as Ludwigsburg. Eberhard Louis decided to cut construction costs, for example allowing construction workers to settle in the city from 1709, then made overtures to potential settlers such as financing for construction material, property, and 15 years without taxation for the residents of Ludwigsburg. To recoup some of the cost of that financing, Duke Eberhard Ludwig commanded the city's residents to either kill several dozen of the sparrows that plagued the city or pay at least six Kreuzer to the Duke's construction treasury (German: Baukasse). Today, the Schlosstheater is itself a museum containing restored Baroque theater props and backgrounds. Construction and growth of the town stalled from its opening in 1709 until Eberhard Louis granted Ludwigsburg city status in 1718 and established it as the capital of the Duchy of Württemberg.

Construction

Duke Eberhard Louis sent theologian and mathematician Philipp Joseph Jenisch to study architecture abroad in 1703, then made Jenisch director of the palace's construction on his return. Jenisch worked from Weiss's plans and work, but construction was throttled by Württemberg's entry into the War of the Spanish Succession. Jenisch only finished the floor and walls of Weiss's lustschloss and some of the southern garden. Eberhard Louis's stay at the palaces of the Bavarian Electors at Munich in 1705 following the Battle of Blenheim heralded the end of Jenisch's tenure at Ludwigsburg, as the Duke came to the conclusion that Jenisch could not match the splendor of Nymphenburg Palace. In early 1707, Eberhard Louis replaced him with 23 year-old Johann Friedrich Nette of Brandenburg, whose task it was to build a complete Baroque palace from Jenisch's corps de logis, to which the wings were aligned at 11°. His work would be further complicated by the palace's foreman, Johann Ulrich Heim, an ally of Jenisch who would oppose Nette and the growing number of Italian artists at the palace until 1714. Opposition to the palace itself was found at the Duchy's court because of its exorbitant cost. The populace also chafed at the palace's cost, one pastor in nearby Oßweil saying of the palace at his pulpit, "May God spare our land the chastising that the Ludwigsburger brood of sinners conjure."

Nette based his plans on those of Jenisch, enabling him to complete his design for a three-wing palace in the same year as his appointment. The galleries of the Old Hauptbau were completed in 1707, then its corps de logis the next year. Absorbing Weiss and Jenisch's lustschloss, the Ordensbau was constructed from 1709 to 1713 and the Riesenbau from 1712 and into the next year. The interiors of these structures, which included dining halls in both of their beletage, were completed in 1714 while Nette began the interior of the Old Hauptbau (which he would never finish). Construction of the Old Hauptbau's pavilions would drag on into 1722. Nette made two trips to Prague and his native Brandenburg to expand his pool of talent, in 1708 hiring fresco painter Johann Jakob Stevens von Steinfels, stucco workers Tomasso Soldati and Donato Giuseppe Frisoni, then in 1709 Andreas Quitainner and later Luca Antonio Colomba, Riccardo Retti and Diego Carlone. In response to an accusation of embezzlement made against him by Jenisch's allies, Nette fled to Paris but was ordered back to Ludwigsburg by Eberhard Louis, only to die of a stroke on 9 December 1714 in Nancy, aged 41. At the time of his death, most of the northern section of the modern palace and its northern garden had been completed.

Jenisch sought to reprise his position as building director following Nette's death, and the building authority was aligned with him. However, Eberhard Louis overruled them in 1715 and appointed Donato Frisoni, a plasterer from Laino who had no formal architectural training. An earlier application Frisoni had made for the directorship had been ignored by the building authority, but he enjoyed the support of the Court Chamberlain and had impressed the Duke with the delicate Bandlwerkstil stucco that Frisoni and Soldati had decorated the Old Hauptbau's interiors with. Frisoni, too, finished his plans in the year of his appointment by working from Nette's and began his work with the palace's churches, the Catholic Schlosskapelle in 1716 and the Lutheran Ordenskapelle in 1720. Next Frisoni finished the East and West Kavaliersbauten in 1722 to house the courtiers of Eberhard Louis's court. Frisoni also modified the existing palace, for instance adding the mansard roof to the top of the Old Hauptbau because the flat roof was prone to water damage. This had become a common issue with Nette's work because of the pressure the Duke placed on him to finish the palace as soon as possible. Frisoni's work thus far led him to the same conclusion as Nette; that he did not have a suitable talent pool to accommodate the Duke's desires for the palace and city, so Frisoni brought on Giacomo Antonio Corbellini and Paolo Retti, his brother and son-in-law respectively, who were followed by Diego Francesco Carlone in 1718.

Beginning in 1721, the Duke began to run out of room for the functions of his court in the Old Hauptbau and Frisoni began planning to enlarge it. Three years later, the Duke dismissed those plans and ordered Frisoni to plan and construct what would become the New Hauptbau. Frisoni originally designed a four story structure, double the height of the existing palace, but plans would change several times after construction began in 1725 atop the first terrace of the south garden. Frisoni settled on a three-story building that still afforded the Duke six rooms for his suite to the Old Hauptbau's three. To connect the New Hauptbau to the existing palace, Frisoni built the Bildergalerie and Festinbau on the west side, and the Ahnengalerie and Schlosstheater on the east. The Bildergalerie was decorated between 1731 to 1732 with stucco and fresco by Pietro Scotti and Giuseppe Baroffio (also at work remodeling the Ordensbau at this time), while the Ahnengalerie was likewise decorated by the Carlone brothers from 1731 to 1733. With the exception of the interiors of the New Hauptbau and Schlosstheater, all work was finished in 1733, but Eberhard Louis died that same year with only a few rooms in the west end of the New Hauptbau completed. Construction of the New Hauptbau and its connecting galleries cost 465,000 guilders and was managed by Paolo Retti, who at times had more than 650 stone masons, cutters, and basic laborers working on the facades between 1726 to 1728.

Use as a residence

As Duke Eberhard Louis left no heirs, he was succeeded by the Catholic Karl Alexander, also a military leader. While he did lay out a new garden at Ludwigsburg, Karl Alexander ended funding for the palace, dismissed its staff, and moved the capital back to Stuttgart in 1733 to modernize Württemberg's army and fortifications. Foreign workers at the palace, called Welschen, had been disliked and envied by native German courtiers. As the master builder of what was now decried as the "sin palace," Donato Frisoni was arrested in 1733 with Paolo Retti on fraudulent charges of embezzlement. The two men were acquitted in 1735 after they paid a hefty fine to the Ducal treasury, despite attempted intervention by the Margrave of Ansbach to free them earlier, but Frisoni died in the city on 29 November 1735. Karl Alexander himself died suddenly two years later on 12 March 1737, as he prepared to leave Ludwigsburg Palace to inspect the Duchy's fortresses. Unlike Eberhard Louis, Karl Alexander did have an heir in Charles Eugene, but he was only nine when Karl Alexander died, beginning a regency that would last until 1744.

In 1746, Charles Eugene began the construction of a new Ducal residence in Stuttgart, but he continued to use Ludwigsburg as a secret residence from 1746 to 1775 and brought the Rococo style to Ludwigsburg with his remodeling of the New Hauptbau's rooms, beginning the next year. The use of certain rooms at Ludwigsburg would change frequently, such as when the Duke tasked Johann Christian David Leger with the permanent conversion of the Ordenskapelle to a Lutheran church for Elisabeth Fredericka Sophie of Prussia from 1746 to 1748, which called for the destruction of Luca Antonio Colomba's frescoes in the building. Beginning in 1757 and lasting into the next year, the suites of the beletage were extensively modified under Philippe de La Guêpière, the Duke's new court architect, as Charles Eugene began residing in these rooms. Charles Eugene finished the Schlosstheater from 1758 to 1759 through La Guêpière, who erected a stage and auditorium as well as stage machinery. An avid fan of opera like his father, from 1764 to 1765 Charles Eugene also constructed a wooden opera hall richly adorned with mirrors, which was located east of the Old Hauptbau, and was described by Goethe as "immensely high" and by Justinus Kerner as "completely lined with mirrors" and large enough to permit "whole regiments of horse-soldiers to ride at one time across the stage". In 1764, Charles Eugene moved the Ducal residence back to Stuttgart but focused his energies on the Solitude and Hohenheim palaces, making no more modifications to Ludwigsburg from 1770 onward. The palace again relinquished its status as the Duke's residence to Stuttgart in 1775. The palace which hosted a court that Giacomo Casanova called "the most magnificent in Europe" began a steady decline.

In 1793, Charles Eugene died without legitimate heir and was succeeded by his brother, Frederick II Eugene who was himself succeeded by his son Friedrich II in 1797. Ludwigsburg Palace had already been the residence of Friedrich II since 1795, and Friedrich II declared it his summer residence. On 18 May 1797, Friedrich II married Charlotte of Great Britain, daughter of King George III, at St James's Palace in Westminster. They used Ludwigsburg as their summer residence, Frederick taking a suite of 12 rooms west of the Marble Hall and Charlotte a dozen to its east, but the Duke did not have time to remodel the suites, which were by that time out of style.

Napoleon Bonaparte's armies occupied Württemberg from 1800 to 1801, forcing the Duke and Duchess to flee to Vienna. The Royals returned when Friedrich II agreed to pledge allegiance to Napoleon and part with some territory in exchange for the title of Elector in 1803. Friedrich II, now Frederick I, felt that he had to express this accomplishment in architecture, as Eberhard Louis had attempted, and gave his court architect Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret the task of updating the palace in the Neoclassical style, beginning with the Ahengalerie from 1803 to 1806 and the Ordensbau from 1804 to 1806. For two days in October 1805, Napoleon visited Ludwigsburg to coerce Frederick I into joining Confederation of the Rhine and thus becoming his ally, compensating Württemberg with neighboring territories in the Holy Roman Empire and Frederick I with the title of King. Frederick I again tasked von Thouret with a remodeling, this time the Ordenskapelle and the King's apartment, which lasted from 1808 to 1811. The final modernizations ordered by the King took place from 1812 to 1816, and were the remodeling of the Schlosstheater and Marble Hall and the repainting of the ceilings of the New Hauptbau's main staircases and the Guard Room. When Frederick I died in 1816, the majority of the palace had been converted to reflect then-modern tastes.

Following her husband's death, Charlotte continued to reside at Ludwigsburg and received many notable visitors from across Europe, among them some of her siblings. She tasked von Thouret with the renovation of her own apartment, which took place from 1816 to 1824. The Dowager Queen died on 5 October 1828 following a bout of apoplexy and was interred in the Württemberg family vault. The Queen was the last ruler of Württemberg to reside at Ludwigsburg, as Frederick's son and successor William I and future Kings did not show any interest in the palace.

Later history

In 1817, ownership of Ludwigsburg Palace passed from the House of Württemberg and to the state government who placed offices there the next year. King William I chose the Order Hall, the throne room of his father, for the ratification of the Kingdom of Württemberg's constitution in 1819. In the same time period that the first restoration at the palace took place, 1865 in the Old Hauptbau, the Order Hall was being used as a courtroom and members of the royal family continued residing at the palace into the early 20th century. In 1918, the palace was opened to the public and the year after saw the ratification of the constitution of the Free People's State of Württemberg. Four years later, the Schlosstheater hosted a production of Händel's Rodelinda by the Württemberg State Theatre, its first since 1853. At the same time, the first tours of the palace were occurring. In 1931, Wilhelm Krämer founded the Ludwigsburg Mozart Society (Ludwigsburger Mozartgemeinde) and began holding the Ludwigsburg Palace Concerts (Ludwigsburger Schlosskonzerte) that, from 1933 to 23 July 1939, annually comprised six to ten concerts held in the Order Hall, the Ordenskapelle, or the courtyard. The palace survived the Second World War unscathed, even being renovated in 1939-40, and was chosen as the site of the Borkum Island war crimes trial. The Concerts resumed in 1947 with 34 concerts, a record that would not be broken until 1979. In 1952, the concerts were packed into a single week as the "Palace Days" (Ludwigsburger Schlosstage) and gained national significance when Theodor Heuss attended a production of Mozart's Titus two years later. The Palace Days became the Ludwigsburg Festival in 1966 and was attended by 12,000 visitors. Finally, in 1980, the state of Baden-Württemberg made the festival an official state event.

More restorations were undertaken in the 1950s and 60s and again in the 1990s, and between those times some scenes of Stanley Kubrick's 1975 film Barry Lyndon were shot at the palace. The last government government offices left Ludwigsburg in 1992-93 in time for another substantial wave of restoration work to sweep the palace in anticipation of its 300th anniversary in 2004, commemorated with three new museums (Baroque Gallery and the Ceramics and Fashion Museums) and by the Federal government with a postage stamp depicting the palace in the same year. On 19 October 2011, Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann hosted a reception for the US 21st Theater Sustainment Command at the palace that was attended by John D. Gardner, former deputy commander of EUCOM, and Gert Wessels, commander of all Federal troops in Baden-Württemberg. Almost five years later on 16 August 2016, Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Finance Edith Sitzmann, visited Ludwigsburg Palace and Schloss Favorite as part of a tour along castles. Ulm-based group Klötzlebauer exhibited a number of their Lego creations, attracting 18,000 visitors and prompting them to exhibit at the palace again that winter. In that time, Ludwigsburg appeared again in Federal postage stamps in the "Burgen und Schlösser" stamp series. The next year in November, a painting of Frederick the Great on display at the palace attributed to Georg Wenzeslaus von Knobelsdorff was found to have actually been painted by his teacher, Antoine Pesne. Michael Hörrmann, acting director of the State Agency for Palaces and Gardens valued the portrait at a minimum of million euros, as officially one was made by Pesne. Sitzmann returned to the palace to see the painting and to attend a press conference, where she spoke about the cultural importance of Ludwigsburg Palace.

In 2018, the city of Ludwigsburg celebrated the 300 year anniversary of Eberhard Louis's elevation of Ludwigsburg to city status. Among the festivities planned by the city for 3 September 2018 is a performance of Haydn's Seasons at the Schlosspark and the Venetian festival (with a higher budget), among 130 other large-scale festivities.

Porcelain manufactory

In 1729, Duke Eberhard Louis received an offer from a mirror-maker named Elias Vater to found a porcelain manufactory, but the Duke turned down his offer, thinking it ridiculous. Eberhard Louis's successor, Charles Alexander, heard of the proposal and in 1736 set aside 2000 gulden for experimenting with the production of porcelain under one Johann Philipp Weißbrodt, which were failures and ceased entirely when Charles Alexander died. Charles Eugene succeeded the throne following a regency and in 1751 passed a decree allowing the Calwer Handelscompagnie von Zahn und Dörtenbach to utilize all the duchy's previous research to again attempt to manufacture porcelain, a right they possessed until its transferral to Bonifatius Christoph Häcker in 1857. Charles Eugene officially founded the Ludwigsburger Porzellan-Fabrik on 5 April 1758 to pressure his Handelscompagnie into delivering, but both parties would fail because of setbacks and insufficient funding. Early progress was hindered by poor handling of raw material and debate over production. Charles Eugene hired Joseph Jakob Ringler, who had worked previously in Vienna, Nymphenburg, and Höchst, on 16 February 1759 as head of the Ludwigsburg Porcelain Manufactory. Ringler held this position for 40 years.

Ringler almost immediately began production of Ludwigsburg's signature grey-brown porcelain, and by March 1758 had 21 employees under him. Over his long career in porcelain, Ringler had learned the proper mixture and technique for making porcelain, but had also made connections to artisans in the business, which allowed him to convince Duke Charles Eugene to hire master painter Gottlieb Friedrich Riedel, who would work at the Ludwigsburg Porcelain Manufactory for 20 years, of Meissen's manufactory, and the sculptor Johann Christian Wilhelm Beyer. The manufactory's first years were very successful and was one of the biggest producers of porcelain wares in Europe from 1760 to 1775. Despite this success, the company regularly spent more than its income, forcing Charles Eugene to support it himself even after he moved the Ducal residence back to Stuttgart from the palace complex in 1775, though he curtailed his support of the company in 1771. Charles Eugene was succeeded in 1793 by Louis Eugene, and he put the manufactory's affairs in order. However, the repaying of its debts and further support of the company by Frederick II Eugene from 1797 could not stall the manufactory's decline. Since 1780, porcelain designs had begun moving from Rococo to the Louis XVI style, but Riedel and thus his department of painters would not adjust to the demand. The company enjoyed a brief renaissance in the reign of King Frederick I, who renamed the company to the Herzoglich-Königliche Porzellan-Manufaktur Ludwigsburg in 1805, but it went into rapid decline on the King's death in 1816. King William I was not interested in propping up the failing company, and it finally closed in 1824 when no buyer or leaseholder was found. There are 27 examples of the manufactory's wares in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Architecture

Ludwigsburg Palace's exteriors and plan exhibit a great deal of Austro-Czech influence, attributable to Johann Friedrich Nette and Donato Frisoni, who were educated in and experienced with Bohemian Baroque architecture and hired staff also experienced in the Bohemiam Baroque style. Some French influence is also present, visible in the mirror halls in both corps de logis and the mansard roofs, but the combination of work by Germans Philipp Jenisch and Nette and Italians Donato Frisoni, Diego and Carlo Carlone, Giuseppe Baroffio, Pietro Scotti and Luca Antonio Columba produced a strong resemblance to late 17th century works in Prague and Vienna. The interiors are also a mix of Baroque influences from Paul Decker the Elder, Nicodemus Tessin the Elder, and Daniel Marot, whose work Duke Eberhard Louis was familiar with and bears some resemblance to Ludwigsburg's ribbonwork (Bandlwerkstil) stucco. Ludwigsburg's Neoclassical architecture, inspired by the Renaissance, the work of Charles Percier and Pierre François Léonard Fontaine, and Egyptian motifs that became popular in Europe with Napoleon's three-year campaign in Egypt, are not consistent to a single style or designer. King Frederick I, at the time Duke Friedrich II, gave Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret the task of remodeling Ludwigsburg's interiors in the Neoclassical style. Thouret was inspired by the French Imperial style, but his friend and partner Antonio Isopi simplified Thouret's plans into a more grounded Classical form that would then be carried out by Johannes Klinckerfuß and court painter Jean Pernaux.

The first designs for the structure to replace the Erlachhof were for an unadorned three-story lustschloss by Matthias Weiss, but he only completed the foundation to his lodge. In 1704, he was replaced with Philipp Joseph Jenisch, who began construction in earnest with a design for a three-winged Baroque palace that included Weiss's lodge as an unattached wing, the East Caviliersbau, which required both east and west wings to be joined to the Old Hauptbau at an 11° angle, and a double staircase identical to the one at Rastatt Palace. Duke Eberhard Louis replaced Jenisch with the young and talented Johann Friedrich Nette in 1706, though Jenisch had already finished the Old Hauptbau's ground floor and much of the southern garden. Nette began with a design, based on Jenisch's own, for an elaborate U-shaped three-winged palace that had the east and west wings joined to the Old Hauptbau with narrow arcade galleries, which corresponded to the standard for hunting and pleasure palaces of the day. He was succeeded by Donato Giuseppe Frisoni, an Italian stuccoist he had hired in Prague in 1709, who showed a progressive attitude in his separation of the palace from the immediately nearby city.

Old Hauptbau

The Old Hauptbau, forming the corps de logis of the north wing, is the oldest portion of the palace, originally built just to house the apartments of Duke Eberhard Louis and his daughter-in-law, princess Henrietta Maria of Brandenburg-Schwedt. Its facade was built in a three year period from 1705 to 1708, and the work on its interiors was mostly completed by 1715 under Donato Giuseppe Frisoni while work inside its pavilions lasted into 1722. In 1809 and 1826–28, the rooms facing the courtyard in the beletage were remodeled in Neoclassical but their Baroque frescoes were revealed in 1865. The corps de logis has a wide vestibule and stairs that terminate in a guard room in the beletage. It houses four suites, which follow the 17th-century French Baroque model of a living room, audience chamber, and bedroom. Eberhard Louis's apartment is made unique by the additions of a hall of mirrors decorated with stucco by Donato Frisoni, joined to the bedroom by the removal of the wall between these two spaces in 1720–21, and a hidden staircase (since removed) into the room of Eberhard Louis's mistress Wilhelmine von Grävenitz. Today, Eberhard Louis's suite appears as it would have during his reign. The third floor, finished in 1708, houses the two picture galleries that predated the galleries of Frisoni's portion of the palace complex and a foyer that commemorated Eberhard Ludwig's love for hunting, though none of its original decor survives. The first picture gallery nearly takes up the whole of the south wall and served as an ahnentafel and portrait gallery before the construction of the southern portion of the complex by Frisoni. Most of the stucco and fresco work, depicting biblical and mythological motifs alongside an image of Eberhard Louis and his monogram, were lost when the gallery was subdivided into offices until its restoration from 2000 to 2004. Above the third floor is the mansard roof, added by Frisoni in 1712 to fight further damage caused by standing water on Nette's flat roof, that now houses a preserved piece of clockwork taken from Zwiefalten Abbey by King Frederick I in 1809.

The two pavilions to the west and east of the Old Hauptbau are joined to the corps de logis by arcade galleries that close off the northern edge of the cour d'honneur. The west and east galleries, completed in 1713 and 1715 respectively according to Nette's 1707 designs (themselves based on Jenisch's 1705 plans), begin with pilastered doorways on either side of the Old Hauptbau's second floor. The Western Gallery celebrates peacetime with plaster statuary and medallions displaying certain virtues, and reliefs of classical events such as the Judgement of Paris, Aeneas fleeing from a burning Troy, Hercules and Omphale, and Apollo and Daphne. The Western Gallery terminates in the Jagdpavillon (Hunting pavilion), containing the Marmorsaletta (German; lit. 'Little marble hall'), a marble (scagliola) hall for the Order of St. Hubert, designed by Giacomo Antonio Corbellini and decorated by Luca Antonio Colomba and Riccardo Retti with depictions of Eberhard Louis's monogram among his hunting grounds above ornamentation copied from Nicodemus Tessin the Elder. Adjoined to the Marmorsaletta are three smaller rooms: the Boiserie, Marble, and Lacquer Cabinets, by Johann Mayer of Kirchheim, Riccardo Retti, Johann Jakob Sänger respectively. The first room and third rooms are notable as examples of Baroque exoticism, as the Boiserie Cabinet is decorated in Turkish motifs and the Lacquer Cabinet in Chinese imagery against black backgrounds. The parquet floors of the Lacquer Cabinet are original. They are a rarity at Ludwigsburg, as the floors elsewhere in the palace needed constant replacement because the servant staff was not properly equipped to clean and maintain them.

The Eastern Gallery, by Riccardo Retti, Diego Carlone, and Donato Frisoni, celebrates warfare with pairs of trophy captives and weapons crowned with a rising sun and Eberhard Louis's monogram in each corner and the center doorway, above which are stucco reliefs depicting the cardinal virtues of Strength, Justice, Moderation, and Wisdom. Above each of the doors are reliefs of the four classical elements: a volcanic foundry (fire), Boreas abducting Orithyia (air), Acis and Galatea (water), and Demeter (earth). Above the entire gallery is Luca Antonio Colomba's Gigantomachy, the war between the Twelve Olympians and the Giants and the triumph of the former over the latter thanks to Hercules, who then bests the Centaurs. Originally, the wall panels opposite the windows in the Eastern Gallery were fitted with mirrors, but these were moved to the New Hauptbau in 1732 and replaced with paintings. The Spielpavillon, at the end of the Eastern Gallery, was completed in 1716 by Frisoni according to designs by himself and Nette (whose plans were used for the exterior). In its center is a round, cruciform hall with four corner-rooms accessed by the spandrels that support the dome. Hemmed in with stucco ribbon, lace, and leafwork, and reliefs of cherubs by Carlone, the dome fresco by Colomba and Emanuel Wohlhaupter depict the four seasons and their corresponding zodiac signs. Also, Colomba and Wohlhaupter likely painted the corner rooms' imitation-Delftware images of Jacques Callot's Grotesque Dwarves.

East wing

The Riesenbau (Giants' Building), built by Johann Friedrich Nette from 1712 to 1713, begins the east wing of Ludwigsburg Palace and acts as the counter to the Ordensbau, on the opposite side of the courtyard. The vestibule was designed by Donato Frisoni in 1713–14 and decorated by Andreas Quittainer, and Luca Antonio Colomba. It prominently features two sphinxes and four giants as the atlases under the staircase to the beletage, originally intended to led up into a room for the Hunting Order that was segregated into residences from 1720 to 1723. Ahead of the giants is a statue of Minerva, and the frescoes on the ceiling above the staircase show Justitia and Fortitudo, the four seasons, and the four classical elements. In 1810, the rooms on the beletage were remodeled in Neoclassical, but they were restored to the Baroque style and opened as a museum in the 1950s. The apartments of Frederick Louis and Carl Alexander were decorated by Frisoni and Colomba, but Carl Alexander's apartment also features a landscape painting by Adolf Friedrich Harper. Underneath the Riesenbau is a barrel cellar that may predate Ludwigsburg Palace, accessed by a vestibule home to a statue of Bacchus. The largest barrel in the cellar, known as the Great Barrel, was made from ten oak trees for Duke Eberhard Louis and holds 90,000 liters (20,000 imp gal) of wine, and could dispense red or white wine as needed. Although most of the wine was consumed by the Duke's court, it was also an alternate form of payment for servant staff and part of the salary of officials at the palace.

Joined to the Riesenbau and East Kavaliersbau (Cavaliers' Building) by a connecting room on its southern end is the Schlosskapelle (Castle chapel), built by Frisoni and Paolo Retti from 1716 to 1724 and consecrated in 1723. The chapel is an Italian rotunda with three semi-domes and a private box for the Duke and his family and friends on the second floor, painted around 1731 with the story of King David. The box is decorated with red velvet wallpaper and a ceiling fresco by Livio Retti. Members of the court took seats inside the chapel, decorated by Frisoni Colomba, and Carlo Carlone, which only depict figures from the Old Testament and the Apostles in its stucco and frescoes according to Protestant doctrine, notably The Adoration of the Holy Trinity on the dome ceiling and The Encouragement of the Brazen Serpent above the pulpit. Underneath the Schlosskapelle is a crypt that contains all rulers of Württemberg from Eberhard Louis to Frederick I. The denomination of the Schlosskapelle depended on the current ruler, Protestant under Eberhard Louis and Frederick I and Roman Catholic under Carl Alexander and Charles Eugene, but today is Roman Catholic. The Schlosskapelle avoided major remodeling in the 19th century, and is today the most original structure of any area of the residential palace. The original organ, built in 1724 by organ builder Joseph Friedrich Baumeister and installed in 1747 by Georg Friedrich Schmahl, was moved to the Ordenskapelle in 1798 by Johann Jakob Pfeiffer. A new organ was built in 1916 by the Walcker Orgelbau company, and today the original one is still extant at Schöntal Abbey.

Directly south of the Riesenbau is the East Kavaliersbau, built by Frisoni from 1715 to 1719 to house members of the Ducal court. It contains four apartments on both floors, like the West Kavaliersbau, and is decorated with stucco ornament by Riccardo Retti and a fresco on the ceiling of the beletage by Leopoldo Retti, preserved from the 1720s. The southwestern apartment on the second floor contains a museum dedicated to the Schlosstheater, attached by gallery to the East Kavaliersbau and the Schlosskapelle. It was constructed by Frisoni from 1729 to 1733, making it Europe's oldest preserved theater, but it was not furnished until 1758–59 by Philippe de La Guêpière, who added a Rococo stage, auditorium, and stage machinery by Johann Christian Keim. Friedrich von Thouret remodeled the Schlosstheater in Neoclassical in 1811–12, though Innocente Colomba's 1763 mural Apollo and the Muses survived the remodeling, which saw the Duke's box expanded, created the King's box on the left side of the theater and in front of the proscenium, changed the wall colors to gray-blue for the Neoclassical decor to stand out against, and had Jean Pernaux paint the ceiling in 1811. Casanova is known to have been at performances at the Schlosstheater, making notes on the performances held there.

The final and southernmost part of the east wing is the Ahnengalerie, built in 1729. It spans the 490 feet (150 m) gallery bridging the work of Nette and Frisoni to the New Hauptbau. Originally, the ceiling frescoes by Carlo Carlone were to depict the story of Achilles, beginning with the Sacrifice of Iphigenia in the northern antechamber and the Sacrifice of Polyxene in the southern one, but Eberhard Louis decided to move that fresco to the Bildergalerie after the completion of those two frescoes in 1732. In the place of this and Frisoni's original plan for a modest and plain white hall, Carlone painted the Homage of the Arts of Sciences to the Rule to Duke Eberhard Louis in 1731–33 to glorify and depict the reign of Eberhard Louis with depictions of Alexander the Great and Apelles, Venus, Mars, Apollo, Phobos, and the Muses, among others. Frederick I had von Thouret remodel the Ahnengalerie in 1805–06, retaining Carlone's frescoes and adding additional stucco to the two antechambers. The portraits in the Ahnengalerie trace the lineage of the rulers of Württemberg from Eberhard I the Bearded, first Duke of Württemberg, to Wilhelm II, the last King of Württemberg, as well as some wives of the Dukes and Kings of Württemberg.

West wing

Beginning the west wing is the Ordensbau (Order building), begun in 1709 when Duke Eberhard Louis laid its cornerstone, containing three apartments on the ground floor and the banquet hall of the Duke's hunting order, later called the Order of the Golden Eagle. The Ordensbau's vestibule was decorated by Luca Antonio Colobma in 1712 with a ceiling fresco of Pheme with a genius and images of Hercules. Colomba continued the Hercules imagery onto the ceiling of the staircase, which features an illusory fresco modeled on those in English and Dutch palaces. The antechamber to the Order Hall is populated with lace and leafwork stucco of cherubs, masks, birds, and weapons by Tomasso Soldati and Donato Frisoni, who are also responsible for the stucco in the Order Hall added in 1711–12, though Giacomo Antonio Corebllini created the imitation marble stucco pilasters in 1717. Colomba painted the walls and ceiling of the hall, but these were removed in 1731 and 1725 respectively because of water damage. Pietro Scotti and Giuseppe Baroffio repainted the ceiling in 1731, resulting in today's depiction of the Olympian gods and Hercules and Clio paying homage to the Heroic Virtue. Johann Friedrich von Uffenbach, mayor of Frankfurt, visited the Hall in 1712 and wrote that it was "the most magnificent and beautiful of everything now built." King Frederick I had the Hall renovated into a throne room in 1805–06, moving the function and imagery of the Order of the Golden Eagle to the Ordenskapelle, and hired Carl Keller to paint over the ceiling with Arabian motifs and palmettes. Friedrich von Thouret designed Frederick I's throne and baldachin, opposite Johann Baptist Seele's 1808 portrait of the King, in 1807, and this is the only part of the Neoclassical throne room that survived the restoration of the Baroque decor in 1939-40. It was in the Order Hall that the constitutions of the Kingdom and then Free People's State of Württemberg, in 1819 and 1919 respectively, were ratified.

Immediately southwest of the Ordensbau is the ovular Ordenskapelle (Order chapel). It was originally begun in 1720 as a companion to the Schlosskapelle, but was converted to its current functionary purpose from 1746 to 1748 by Duke Charles Eugene, who tasked Johann Christoph David Leger with remodeling it for Duchess Elisabeth Fredericka. Leger removed the floor between the chapel and a second-floor Order hall and reused the existing pilasters for new Rococo decor crafted by Pietro Brilli while Livio Retti painted frescoes of the life and times of Jesus Christ. Above the chapel on the second floor is the Duchess' box, opulently decorated in 1747–48 with stucco and frescoes of the birth of Christ and allegories of faith, hope and love. The altar, pulpit, organ case, and the furnishings of the Duchess' box were created by Louis Roger. In 1798, Frederick I moved the Ordenskapelle's church functions to the Schlosskapelle. Nine years later as king, he designated it for use by the Order of the Golden Eagle and tasked Friedrich von Thouret with remodeling it in the Empire style. He walled up the first-floor windows in 1807–08 for seating room and for the King's canopied throne under its star-studded semidome. The coats of arms of the members of the Order are emblazoned on the wall above each member's chair. The organ in the Ordenskapelle was brought from Kochersteinsfeld and installed in 1980, as the original had been moved to Freudental in 1814.

Also attached to the Ordenskapelle is the West Kavaliersbau, which is identical in layout and design to the East Kavaliersbau, but was built in 1719–20. The West Kavaliersbau retains some of its original stucco and ceiling frescoes, mostly depicting scenes from Greek mythology such as Ganymede's arrival at Mount Olympus, by Riccardo and Livio Retti respectively. The Festinbau, attached to the West Kavaliersbau, was originally designed as kitchen and built from 1729 to 1733 as a theater, complete with a proscenium that Charles Eugene used for festivities from 1770 to 1775. Since 2004, the West Kavaliersbau and the Festinbau have contained the Fashion Museum (Modesmuseum). The actual kitchen structure, the Küchenbau (Kitchen building), was built separate from the palace, and parallel to the Ordensbau, to keep odors and the threat of fire away from the palace proper. Inside are seven hearths, a bakery, a butcher's shop, and several pantries, such as the cellar vault where apples were kept, and the quarters for the servant staff in the attic and on the first floor. Most of the food prepared here was sourced locally, due to the difficulty in transport of resources.

The Bildergalerie (Picture gallery), the southernmost part of the west wing of the palace, spans 490 feet (150 m) to bridge the West Kavaliersbau to the New Hauptbau to the south. The gallery was built by Frisoni in 1731–32, though the only original Baroque decor that remains is Pietro Scotti's ceiling fresco depicting the life of Achilles, originally intended to adorn the ceiling of the Ahnengalerie to the east. Friedrich von Thouret renovated the Bildergalerie in Tuscan Neoclassicism from 1803 to 1805, and today contains a fireplace made by Antonio Isopi and a statue of Apollo by Pierre Francois Lejeune on the opposite side. Originally, this statue was carved in 1772 for the temple of Apollo in Castle Solitude's Hall of Laurels, but was then moved to Charles Eugene's library in Hohenheim Palace in 1778, and it found its way to the Bildergalerie during von Thouret's remodeling. Details on the northern and southern antechambers are lacking. The ceiling frescoes do not have an official interpretation and it is not known whether Scotti or Carlo Carlone painted them, only that the frescoes were produced in 1730.

New Hauptbau

The entirety of the southern wing of Ludwigsburg Palace is made up by the New Hauptbau. It was designed and constructed by Donato Frisoni on the express command of Duke Eberhard Louis, who found that the Old Hauptbau was too small to serve the needs of his court. Frisoni planned in 1725 for a four story building, but wound up building three stories from 1725 until Eberhard Louis's death, which left the building unfinished. Over a decade later in 1747, Duke Charles Eugene resumed construction in the New Hauptbau and completed its interiors in Rococo. Charles Eugene abandoned the palace in 1775, and the next royals to reside there were the first King and Queen of Württemberg, Frederick I and Charlotte Mathilde, who extensively remodeled parts of the palace in Neoclassical from 1802 to 1824 and personally resided in the New Hauptbau during the summer. After the palace stopped being a royal residence it became occupied by offices, and the New Hauptbau was used in 1944 and 1945 to store furnishings recovered from the recently destroyed New Palace in Stuttgart. Within the New Hauptbau is a system of secret passages crowded around two hidden courtyards, called the Dégagements, that allowed servants to travel unobserved inside the structure while on-call.

The New Hauptbau opens with its vestibule, an ovular chamber entirely decorated by Carlo Carlone home to a statue of Duke Eberhard Louis surrounded by terms supporting a flat ceiling, sporting the fresco Blessings of Peace. In the wall niches behind the columns are statues of Apollo, a woman and a sphinx, and two maenads and a satyr. A vaulted passageway decorated with two figures of Hercules leads into the Summer Salon, featuring a ceiling fresco by Diego Carlone and statues of Roman deities in niches. Next are the grand staircases on either side of the vestibule, from 1798 called the King's stairs (West) and the Queen's stairs (East), that lead up into the beletage of the New Hauptbau and feature statuary and stucco ribbonwork by Diego Carlone. The King's stairs' statuary are themed after unhappy romances, namely Marc Antony and Cleopatra, Samson and Delilah, Sophonisba and Masinissa, and Tomyris, while the cavettos above are adorned with stucco depictions of the seasons personified and medals bearing Eberhard Louis's initials. The Queen's staircase is a mirror of the King's, but the statuary is themed after virtues: Vigilance, Fortitude, the goddess Minerva to represent the arts and sciences, Dignity, Truth, and Peace, and the ribbonwork above displays Apollo, Artemis, and the four classical elements.

Two galleries, painted with frescoes by Carlo Carlone in 1730, lead from the stairs to a guardroom also decorated by Carlone in 1730 with stucco weapon trophies and the fresco Hall of the Guards, which was covered by von Thouret with Neoclassical ornamentation in 1815. The south door of the guardroom leads into the Marble Hall (German: Marmorsaal), the palatial dining hall once used to receive Francis I of Austria and Alexander I of Russia, that today appears without alteration as von Thouret's designed in September 1815. Thouret began in 1813-14 by removing the Baroque ceiling fresco, and installing a curved ceiling that Jean Pernaux painted the spring of 1815, and finished in mid-1816 with the completion of the stucco faux marble walls of the Marble Hall. Pilasters and windows form the lower wall, decorated by stucco garlands and candelabras by Antonio Isopi and reproductions of the Medusa Rondanini, Hermes Ludovisi, and the Medici Vase above and flanking the doors. Sitting on top of this is a walkway in the attica, divided by pillars decorated by caryatids holding plates and pitcher designed by Johann Heinrich Dannecker. The ceiling fresco, by Pernaux, depicts a cloudy blue sky that contains an eagle and four smaller birds that hoist the Marble Hall's chandeliers. The roof above the Marble Hall has no visible supports, a feat achieved despite the curved ceiling thanks to its weight being cantilevered upon the entablatures at the top the walls of the Marble Hall.

To the east of the Marble Hall is the apartment of Queen Charlotte, which had originally been designed to house Hereditary Prince and Princess Frederick Louis and Henrietta Maria, but had its first resident in Charles Eugene's mother, Marie Auguste. From 1750 onward, these rooms were used for socializing and as apartments, but when Charlotte joined Frederick I in residence at Ludwigsburg in 1798, the separating walls were removed to form one suite. Friedrich von Thouret only changed three rooms: the Queen's apartment from 1802 to 1806, adding damask to the primary antechamber (which also features an original Baroque ceiling fresco restored in the 1950s), assembly, and audience rooms, and did not begin serious work until Charlotte established Ludwigsburg as her residence after Frederick I's death. From 1816 to 1824, Thouret began extensively remodeling the Queen's suite in Neoclassical, sometimes incorporating some of the prior Baroque artwork such as by Nicolas Guibal's paintings over the doors of the assembly room depicting Venus and Narcissus. Charlotte's audience chamber, remodeled in 1806 to celebrate Württemberg's elevation to a Kingdom contains her throne, red silk walls, and paintings of Cybele, Minerva, and personifications of Strength, Harmony, and Wisdom by Viktor Heideloff over the doors and in the lunettes of Johann Wilhelm Ziegler's mirrors. Next door is the bedroom, remodeled in 1824 in an Egyptian style with marbled green pilasters and with an alcove containing red silk from 1760. The study, the next room to the east, is unusual for Neoclassical interior because of its large mirrors, flanked by more green pilasters topped with grisailles. Finally, there is the summer study and the Queen's library, remodeled by von Thouret in 1818 with blue damask, an oven by Isopi, and overdoor paintings by Johannes Danner that carry over into the library, to the west. The entire apartment is furnished in Biedermeier fashion by Johannes Klinckerfuss, whose work is also adorned by embroidery by Charlotte herself.

King Frederick I's apartment, the western opposite to Charlotte's suite, was to house Duke Eberhard Louis and Wilhelmine von Grävenitz, and later Johanna Elisabeth of Baden-Durlach, but Charles Eugene became the first to reside here in 1744 with his wife. When they separated in 1756, Charles absorbed her suite for his own personal residence. King Frederick I then took up residence, and had Friedrich von Thouret remodel his 12-room suite from 1802 to 1811. The suite opens with the antechamber, which contains decorations dated to 1785 likely taken from Hohenheim Palace and an original ceiling fresco by Carlone of Bacchus and Venus. Next door is the audience chamber which retained its original red damask, but with added Neoclassical borders, and acquired Frederick's throne and furniture by Isopi, featuring griffins in relief, and two ovens by Georg Matthäus Schmid. Past the conference room, retaining the original Rococo overdoor paintings by Viktor Heideloff and Thouret's yellow wallpaper, is the King's bedchambers, the last room in the residential apartment. The original Baroque wooden wall paneling by Joseph Maximilian Pöckhl and Guibal's overdoor paintings of cherubs survived the 1811 remodeling that added mahogany furniture by David Roentgen and Klinckerfuss, the two statues of Ceres, a fireplace, and Frederick's bed and blue silk drapery. Frederick's administrative rooms encompasses three offices: a library, a dressing room, and some additional rooms that were used for social functions in the time of Charles Eugene. The walls and furnishing of the office are Neoclassical, decorated with embellishment like the heads of Greek gods and cornucopias, but the ceiling fresco is a Guibal original from 1779 of Chronos and Clio. Sandwiched between the old writing room room and the dressing room, both remodeled in 1808–09, is the library accessed by secret passage home to original mahogany bookcases by Carl Friedrich Schweickle with marble reliefs of Athena carved by Philipp Jakob Scheffauer. For the final, modest rooms of the suite, chief among the new writing room featuring Sappho in relief on a fireplace, were also remodeled in 1808–09 according to Frederick's exact instructions, which called for the division of one room into two for more fireplaces.

In 1757 Duke Charles Eugene moved into the New Hauptbau and tasked Philippe de La Guêpière with the apartment's decoration. By 1759, La Guêpière had completed the entire suite except for the bedchamber, completed in 1770, as Charles Eugene occupied the suite of his wife Elisabeth Fredericka in 1760 for use as his real residence, which was later absorbed into Frederick I's second-floor suite. The rest of the suite was used for social functions until they were emptied of their furnishing in the next decade. Successive royals resided here, most notably Queen Olga and her two children. A staircase and antechamber lead into Ludovico Bossi's stuccoed gallery, forming the entrance of today's apartment. First are the First and Second Antechambers, clad in green damask with portraits by Antoine Pesne and Rococo paneling by Michel Fressancourt respectively, that contain overdoor paintings by Matthäus Günther, boiserie flooring by Johann Peter Stößer, stucco by Giovanni Brilli, and furniture by Jacques-Philippe Carel and Jean-Baptiste Hédouin that Charles Eugene acquired around 1750. Following the Antechambers is the Assembly Room, restored in 2003, which prominently features overdoor paintings by Adolf Friedrich Harper and rocaille musical instrument trophies above the windows by Johann Michael Binder. Charles Eugene's third-floor residence begins with the Corner Room, again painted by Harper and stuccoed by Brilli, which feeds into a cabinet room featuring carvings by Christian Sauer, and then finally the bedroom. Bossi created the ceiling stucco in 1759-60, but it took another decade to finish as was the case for the two further cabinets attached to the bedroom. Additional rooms on the third floor housed relatives of the Dukes and later Kings of Württemberg, but since 2004 these have been occupied by the Ceramics Museum.

Grounds and gardens

Surrounding the residential palace on three sides is the 32-hectare (79-acre) Blooming Baroque (Blühendes Barock) gardens that attract 520–550,000 visitors annually. Today's garden was founded in 1954 and it was arranged in a Baroque style for its 250th birthday. It contains small themed gardens, most notably the Sardinian and two Japanese gardens, and the Fairy tale garden (Märchengarten) in the east that contains a folly and depictions of some fairy tales. The garden was to be focused in the north with an Italian terraced garden and it was largely completed when Duke Eberhard Louis turned his attention to the South Garden, then a collection of broderie parterres, bosquets, and an orangery, and laid out a large, symmetrical French Baroque garden. Beginning in 1749, Duke Charles Eugene began revising the layout of the gardens by filling in the North Garden's terraces to replace it with a large broderie, expanding and reorganizing the South Garden in the 1750s, and then finally building one of Europe's largest orangeries there in 1764. Beginning in 1770, the South Garden was cleared and leased out and it began falling into disrepair. Duke Friedrich II, later King Frederick I, remodeled the decayed South Garden in Neoclassical beginning in 1797, keeping the same pathways but adding a canal and fountain and dividing the South Garden into four symmetrical lawns containing an artificial hillock and Mediterranean plants held in a large vessel made by Antonio Isopi, a division kept in today's South Garden. Frederick I also gave the North Garden it's current form in 1800, expanded the garden east to form the English-style Lower East garden, demolished Charles Eugene's opera house in the Upper East Garden to form a romantic medieval-themed landscape garden, and created two private gardens for himself and Queen Charlotte, adjacent to their New Hauptbau suites. Other additions, in the Lower East Garden, were a carousel and the Emichsburg, a folly designed by Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret and built from 1798 to 1802 and named after a retainer of the Hohenstaufens and fabled ancestor of the House of Württemberg.

Frederick's son and successor William I abandoned Ludwigsburg for Rosenstein Palace in Stuttgart and opened the South Garden to the public in 1828. The canal was filled in and an orchard planted on the southern lawns, later used to grow potatoes and vegetables, and within the 150 years it was abandoned the garden became unrecognizable. In 1947, Albert Schöchle was charged with maintaining Ludwigsburg Palace's gardens and after visiting the 1951 Bundesgartenschau in Hanover, decided to restore the gardens. Schöchle convinced Baden-Württemberg's Minister of Finance Karl Frank to help fund the venture in 1952 on the condition that the city of Ludwigsburg would also assist, a stipulation to which Lord Mayor Elmar Doch and the town council agreed. Frank approved start of work on 23 March 1953 and construction lasted into Autumn and required the moving of 100,000 cubic meters (3,531,467 cu ft) of earth by bulldozers supplied by American soldiers and the planting of tens of thousands of trees and hedges, 22,000 roses, and 400,000 individual flowers. The Blooming Baroque gardens were opened on 23 April 1954 after delays caused by severe winter weather and it attracted 500,000 visitors by May 1954, among them President Theodor Heuss. When the garden closed for the Autumn of 1954, it had recouped all but 150,000 Reichsmarks invested in the garden's restoration and exhibition and it was easily able to become a permanent landmark.

In the farthest east portion of the gardens is the Fairy Tale Garden German: Märchengarten, made up of some 40 recreations or depictions of fairy tales including, but limited to, Sleeping Beauty, The Frog Prince, Max and Moritz, Rübezahl, Sindbad, Rapunzel, Ali Baba, and Aladdin. The Fairy Tale was yet another addition to the palace gardens by Albert Schöchle opened in 1959 after being inspired by a similar garden he'd seen two years earlier in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The Fairy Tale Garden faced some opposition in its planning phase, but the 16 May 1959 opening was also an immediate success. The palace garden's proceeds increased 50% after the Fairy Tale Garden opened and then doubled in 1960, ensuring the future of the Blooming Baroque gardens.

Schloss Favorite

Originally, Ludwigsburg Palace had been planned to be a lustschloss on the site of an earlier structure, the "Erlachhof," which had been razed by French troops. Construction began in 1704, but by 1710 Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg had decided to use Ludwigsburg Palace as his main residence rather than just a hunting lodge, and charged Donato Giuseppe Frisoni with the construction of a three-winged palace in the image of the Palace of Versailles. Ludwigsburg Palace had been built on the ducal hunting property north of Stuttgart, and the Duke still desired a hunting retreat. In 1717, inspired by a garden palace he had seen in Vienna, the Duke tasked Frisoni with the design of a new Rococo palace to be located on a hill to the north of the main palace. Schloss Favorite was not intended for long stays, lacking any living quarters, but it was perfectly outfitted for formal functions of court, especially balls. Eberhard Louis would organize an annual religious festival on Hubertustag, complete with parties and banquets, although food had to be hauled from the residential palace for every feast. Schloss Favorite was used as the backdrop to a firework display for Eberhard Louis's wedding to Elisabeth Frederika Sophie in 1748. This would not be the first time Charles Eugene would alter the palace's function for his wife. For Fredericka's eighteenth birthday, the Duke had Favorite transformed into an opera house for a showing of Carl Heinrich Graun's Artaserse, whose premiere Eberhard Louis had been a guest to in 1743 in Berlin.

Frisoni laid out the grounds of Schloss Favorite in the shape of a six-pointed star, with four pavilions and six avenues that would run through the surrounding forest, originally planted for one enormous pheasant farm. These plans did not come to fruition, and today only two of these avenues exist today, one connecting Favorite to the main palace, and the other to Monrepos. Frisoni set to work on Favorite in 1717 and by the next year was constructing the roof. From this flat terrace, which was difficult to construct and is prone to water damage, the Duke and his honored guests could take in the extensive views of the palace grounds and shoot at passing game. As with the primary palace, the influence of the Bohemian Baroque can be found in Schloss Favorite, and the Italian stucco work is of high quality and can be reimagined even after later modifications because of Frisoni's remaining artworks. In the southwest corner of the building, the original baroque stucco and fresco remains.

In 1800, the interiors of the lustschloss were remodeled by court architect Nikolaus Friedrich von Thouret for King Frederick in the Neoclassical style as the baroque interiors of the palace were by then passé and not of his taste. Three years prior, in 1797, Frederick I had von Thouret redesign the main hall, called the Festaal, and neighboring rooms in the Neoclassical style. Today, only one room, in the western half of the building, retains its original baroque appearance. When Frederick was appointed an Elector in 1803 and made a King in 1806, he chose both times to celebrate the occasion at Schloss Favorite. The resort palace fell into disrepair in the 20th century, but it was restored true to form from 1972 to 1982. Today, Favorite is known for being the backdrop of the SWR Fernsehen talkshow Nachtcafé. The palace is currently closed until 2019 for renovation work.

Museums

On the first and third floors of the Old Hauptbau is the Baroque Gallery (German: Barockgalerie), a subsidiary museum of the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart opened in 2004 that displays 120 paintings, some of which are originals from a purchase Duke Charles Alexander made in 1736 of some 400 paintings from Gustav Adolf von Gotter. Examples of the German and Italian Baroque paintings on display include Martin van Meytens's portrait of Charles Alexander, works by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, Carl Borromäus Andreas Ruthart, Johann Heiss, and Katharina Treu as well as some works that formerly were in the collection of Cosimo III, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

The Landesmuseum Württemberg maintains two subsidiary museums at Ludwigsburg Palace, the Ceramic and Fashion museums, both opened at Ludwisburg in 2004. The first of these takes up all of the third floor of the New Hauptbau but the apartment of Duke Charles Eugene, a space of 2,000 square meters (22,000 sq ft) containing over 4,5000 exhibits of examples of porcelain, ceramics, faience, and pottery and the histories thereof, making it one of the largest in Europe. The museum collection contains 2000 pieces of original Ludwigsburg Porcelains and 800 pieces of Italian maiolica, purchased by Charles Eugene from dealers in Augsburg and Nuremberg. In totality, the museum collection includes porcelains from the manufacturies at Meissen, Berlin, Sèvres, and Vienna, and 20th century Art Nouveau pieces purchased from six countries since 1950. The Fashion museum (German: Modemuseum), housed in the Festinbau and West Kavaliersbau, displays about 700 various pieces of clothing and accessories from the 1750s to the 1960s, including articles of clothing by Charles Frederick Worth, Paul Poiret, Christian Dior, and Issey Miyake, and a silk nightgown that belonged to a Margrave of Baden.

On the ground floor of the New Hauptbau is the lapidarium, housing original Baroque statuary by Andreas Philipp Quittainer, Carlo and Giorgio Feretti, Christian Friedrich Wilhelm Beyer and Pierre François Lejeune adversely effected by over two centuries of erosion. The second floor of the New Hauptbau hosts the Princess Olga Cabinet Exhibition, exploring the life and times of the royal family of Württemberg in the 20th century though historical photographs taken inside the palace. In Charles Eugene's apartment, on the third floor of the New Hauptbau, is the Princess Olga Cabinet, displaying pictures taken during the residence of Princess Olga and her husband in Charles Eugene's apartment from 1901 to 1932.

For children aged four and beyond, there is an interactive museum called Kinderreich (Children's Kingdom), that aims to teach children about life in the court of the Duke of Württemberg via hands-on methods that include the wearing of period dress. Children are led through the dressing room, then to a mock courtroom that hosts several stations that recreate aspects of court life at Ludwigsburg. The Young Stage (German: Junge Bühne) is yet another facet of Kinderreich wherein children learn about Baroque stage performance.

In the Palace Theater are about 140 preserved original set pieces and props from the 18th and 19th centuries discovered during restoration work on the Theater, such as oil lamps used for stage lighting. These items were extensively restored to their original condition from 1987 until 1995 and, since 1995, one of the original stage pieces has been used for the Children's Stage (German: Junge Bühne). The Theater Museum also allows visitors to use reconstructed noise props used during Baroque plays to recreate the sound of thunder, wind, and rain.

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwigsburg_Palace