New Schleissheim Palace
"Elector Max Emanuel's Versailles" - a monument to the imperial dreams of an absolutist baroque prince and a gallery palace of an ardent art collector.
Max Emanuel, who fought first with the Austrians against the Turks and later with the French against the Austrians, endowed Munich with the splendour of baroque palaces, such as Schleissheim and Nymphenburg. With his imperial dreams, he wanted to make a vast "royal residence" out of Schleissheim. However, debts and exile made his plans less ambitious. Nevertheless, the result can still be seen. Today, visitors are still enchanted by a certain charm.
The constructon of the New Palace was begun by the old Zucalli in 1701. (The "French trained" Effner continued this in 1719-26). But the stairway was only completed by Klenze. This magnificent gay and festive example of late baroque and rococo architecture extends to 335 m, divided into a central secton, a connecting wing and corner pavillions. Its windowed facade faces the Old Palace in the west and the park in the east.
French elegance, which can be seen in the graceful window design on the facade, continues completely inside the palace. The columned hall, the splendid stairway, the Large Gallery, the banquet halls and the residential suites wallow in light stucco, colourful frescoes and paintings.
"Victory over the Turks!" ...proclaims the pogramme on the top floor of the central buildng. J.B. Zimmermann's magnificent stucco sculpture features the heads of Turks, war trophies, atlas slaves. Amigoni's frescoes celebrate Max Emanuel in the form of the forefather of Rome, Aeneas. The Venetian fresco artist replaced Asam when the latter's "trial fresco" in the dome of the stairway - "Venus and Vulcan" - did not meet meet with the Elector's approval because he did not like his portrait (on the right next to Venus). Beich's battle paintings also honour the victory over the Turks - two huge paintings in the light-filled Great Hall, nine smaller ones in the Victory Hall, a baroque gem with Hercules herms by Dubut and regency decoration from the Pichler workshop.
Fitted out wth new paintngs from the Bavarian State Painting Collections since 2001, baroque paintings of European standing can now be admired in more than 20 rooms of the New Palace. The Large Gallery houses three work by Rubens with religious subjects, as well as works by the Italians II Guercino, Castigione, Sarceni, Giordano, amongst others. In the appartments, Dutch paintings alternate with paintings by French or Italian artists, and portraits by van Dyck and Vivien are found alongside genre scenes by Teniers the Younger and paintings with mythological or religious subjects by Crespi,Testa or Manredi.