inscribed as title and dated "Aug 23 1875"
The Orangery is a former greenhouse on the Karlsaue in the Hessian city of Kassel . The baroque one-wing complex was built from 1701 onwards on behalf of Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel according to a design by master builder Johann Konrad Giesler , destroyed in 1943 and rebuilt by 1981. The ensemble also includes the eastern kitchen pavilion and the western marble bathroom .
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In 1568, William IV laid out a walled palace garden on the site of today's Orangery and the adjacent Hessenkampfbahn , with a small pleasure palace at the southern end. His successor, Landgrave Moritz, redesigned the garden at the beginning of the 17th century. Today's Orangery was built below or around 400 m south of the former city palace, near the western bank of the Fulda . The baroque building was built between 1701 and 1711 under Landgrave Karl of Hesse-Kassel based on French models; the architect is considered to be the landgrave's court architect Johann Konrad Giesler . The main building is 139.40 meters long and was designed as a low structure with a higher, two-story middle section and two higher, three-story corner pavilions. The architecture of the building is continued in the baroque garden architecture of the Karlsaue .
The richly decorated Apollo Hall was located on the upper floor of the central building. It is significant that it could only be reached via the open roof; there was no staircase. The gate passage of the Orangery below, which was once open, connected the so-called Voraue (today's Hessenkampfbahn) and the rest of the park. The main axis of the large Baroque garden thus ran through the building. Landgrave Karl planned to line the main building of the Orangery with several pavilions standing somewhat apart. During his lifetime, however, only the marble bath was built in 1722 at the western end of the Orangery. This was a state room that served no practical purpose other than to display numerous marble sculptures by Pierre-Étienne Monnot and can now be visited as part of guided tours. It was not until 1765 that the symmetry of the complex was restored by Simon Louis du Ry with the construction of the kitchen pavilion, which stands opposite the marble bath to the east.
From 1830 onwards, the interior was severely damaged by unsuccessful repair work. Most of the stucco work and the interior painting were lost. In 1872, the stucco work on the exterior was significantly altered. Among other things, the baroque medallions of Roman emperors were replaced with portraits of Hessian rulers and the damaged statues were removed from the niches on the north side. During the Second World War, the orangery was badly damaged in the British air raid on Kassel on October 22, 1943. After the war damage, the external appearance of the orangery was restored by 1981, with the historical remains of the south side of the long wings being replaced by faulty replicas. The decorations on the front only correspond to the state of 1872; the interior has been completely redesigned.
During the time of the Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, the long galleries of the orangery served as banquet halls and also as a wintering house for the potted plants that were placed in the so-called orangery garden in summer. This gave rise to the Kassel orangery culture, which is considered to be of great importance. The corner pavilions were used by the landgrave's family as a summer residence. After the occupation of Electorate Hesse by French troops, the orangery was initially used as a hospital and warehouse. In 1808, the Westphalian King Jérôme Bonaparte convened the state parliament here before the Fridericianum was converted into the Palace of the Estates. In 1813, Kassel was liberated by the Russian army. The portal of the marble bath still bears the scars of Russian shelling.
After the dissolution of the monarchy and the founding of the parliamentary-democratic Free State of Prussia in 1918, the main part of the Orangery and the meadowland, which was converted into the Hessenkampfbahn sports field in 1926, were used for industrial, commercial and specialist exhibitions. The provisionally secured war ruins of the Orangery served as an exhibition venue for the second Federal Garden Show and the documenta in 1955. On the occasion of documenta 6 in 1977, the building became part of the Laserscape installation by Horst H. Baumann and Peter Hertha . The ray figurations take up the axial symmetries of the baroque complex of the Orangery, Karlsaue and the city of Kassel as such and connect them on special days through nighttime illumination.
Today the Orangery houses the Astronomical and Physical Cabinet with an integrated planetarium . This is a reference to the scientific importance of astronomy at the time of Landgrave Moritz. At that time, the first facility for stargazing and studying astronomical phenomena was located in the former defense tower in the city fortifications, the Zwehrenturm. The Karlsaue Planet Trail has been affiliated with the museum since 1996. The spacious terrace separates the garden palace from the Karlswiese in front of it and is used for catering in the area of the kitchen pavilion, especially during the summer. Since the 1980s, 11 apartments in the Orangery have been rented out.
During documenta 12, the meadow in front of the Orangery was used for the exhibition, for which a 9500 m² hall was built on the meadow. This hall was called the Auepavillon . Since 2008, the Summer Night Open Air, the second largest classical open-air concert in Germany, has taken place on the Karlswiese in front of the Orangery. The administration of the Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel is striving to revive the orangery culture in Kassel. To this end, citrus plants will be allowed to overwinter in at least parts of the Orangery in the future and the rooms will be used for events in the summer.
Mary Keightley (1854-1946) was the youngest daughter of Archibald Keightley (1795-1877), executor of Sir Thomas Lawrence’s estate. She was a good amateur artist. Archibald Keightley (1795-1877), who was a solicitor who was the executor for Sir Thomas Lawrence, who had died earlier in 1830. Mr Keightley was responsible for the sale of Sir Thomas's collections, some of which were not paid for! There is a very interesting story about Sir Thomas's collection of old master drawings which were part of the assets Mr Keightley hadto dispose of. Following his work as a solicitor, Mr Keightley a few years later became the Registrar for the Charterhouse School, where he remained for 39 years.
Mary Keightley was born in 1854, in Charterhouse, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom, her father, Archibald Keightley, was 58 and her mother, Sarah Elizabeth Yates, was 41. She lived in London, England for about 20 years and Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, United Kingdom in 1891. She died on 20 April 1946, in Camberley, Surrey, England, United Kingdom, at the age of 93.