Germany Guide
Hesse
Schloss Wilhelmshöhe
Address: In the Wilhelmshöhe park
Opening time: Tues– Sun 10am–5pm
Price: €6
The lower reaches of the park are dominated by Schloss Wilhelmshöhe, a massive Neoclassical pile built between 1786 and 1801 to plans by Simon du Roy for Landgrave Wilhelm IX. The central Corps de Logis houses the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, a heavyweight collection of Old Masters originally amassed by the Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hesse-Kassel and ranking with the best in Germany. Laid out over three floors, it is particularly strong in Flemish and Dutch works. The third floor of the museum is a treasure-trove of works by Rubens, Van Dyck, Jacob Jordaens and Rembrandt, with highlights including Rembrandt's tender Jacob Blessing Ephraim and Manasseh from 1656 and Rubens' Flight into Egypt, a delicate and modest-sized panel painting that lacks the theatrical swagger of his famous altarpieces. The second floor displays Dutch painting of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, while German works on the first floor include a small Cranach portrait of a rather stout Martin Luther, dated 1543, Dürer's 1499 Portrait of Elsbeth Tucher and a number of works by Johann Heinrich Tischbein the Elder, court painter to the Hesse-Kassels, including a portrait of Wilhelm VIII himself. The first floor also displays Italian, Spanish and French art, including canvasses by Titian and Tintoretto. The ground floor and basement of the Corps de Logis are occupied by the Antikensammlung of Classical antiquities, as well as a series of cork models of the monuments of ancient Rome created at the end of the eighteenth century by Antonio Chichi. One of the side wings of Schloss Wilhelmshöhe is the Weissensteinflügel (guided tours Tues– Sun: March– Oct 10am–5pm; Nov– Feb 10am–4pm; €4), the only part of the Schloss to preserve its original Neoclassical domestic interiors.