Announcing Rheinsberg: Frederick the Great discussion post 10

[cahn]

So for anyone who is reading this and would like to learn more about Frederick the Great and his contemporaries, but who doesn't want to wade through 500k (600k?) words worth of comments and an increasingly sprawling comment section:

We now have a community, rheinsberg, that has quite a lot of the interesting historical content (and more coming regularly), organized nicely with lots of lovely tags so if there's any subject you are interested in it is easy to find :D

Comments

Antinous

[mildred_of_midgard]

The librarian has been foiled! By not having a billing address in Europe. Curses.

selenak, as royal reader, would you be willing to acquire a copy of this volume, in pdf form for our library, in addition to reading and summarizing it for us? And work out reimbursement with cahn?

I think it's a fair trade: I give you sibling correspondence, you give me boyfriend research. :D

Re: Antinous

[selenak]

I can certainly buy it, and summarize it, but living in a country with a really strict copy right law, where they google and can connect one's fannish identity with one's rl identity easily, I must disclaim any intention of doing anything illegal with it.

Re: Antinous

[mildred_of_midgard]

Sure, since you're the only one who even knows German, it doesn't need to go in the library at all--I just suggested that for the convenience of keeping everything in one place. Thanks in advance for the read-through and summary!

Re: Antinous

[cahn]

I am certainly happy to reimburse you, as that had always been my understanding of our division of duties here :) I'll PM you.

(holy cow that's really strict!)

Re: Antinous - The Reader's Report

[selenak]

Concisely written, a story of the statue from the time it was rediscovered in 1503 to the present, with, of course, the central focus on how and why it came into Fritz' possession, what it may have meant to him, contemporary context.

What I've learned:

- the two arms were a relatively recent addition, barely a century there, when it came to be owned by Fritz. When the statue was first rediscovered, the arms were missing - there's a copy existent showing it like that - but by the time they ended up owned by Foucquet, minister of Louis XIV (until his fall, which if you've read Anne Golon's Angelique novels like me you know all about), they're described with arms. (Previous owner was Charles I pre beheading.)

- most prominent owner (but NOT the last one) pre Fritz was Prince Eugene. Our author points out Eugene's open secret homosexuality with a great quote by Liselotte in her splendid baroque informal German: " er incommodirt sich
nicht mitt damen, ein par schonne pagen weren beßer sein sach." ("He doesn't inconvienience himself with ladies, a few beautiful pages would be more his kind of thing.") (Liselotte, widow of Philippe, knows what she's talking about!) At that point, the statue was already known as Antinous.

- Irony of ironies: the (not much of a) battle of Philippsburg features three "Antinous"-owners being present - Eugene, Fritz, and the guy in between, Prince Joseph (!) Wenzel von Liechtenstein.

- Joseph Wenzel was the victim of historical retcons in the Frederician and beyond era until ca. the mid 19th century, because the idea that the statue had come straight from Eugene to Fritz was much more pleasing in terms of ranks, two heroes both gay. But Joseph Wenzel is the lynchpin. He met and socialised with Fritz at Philippsburg. Was among the Austrians pumped for money by Fritz. Did actually, many years later, get money back from Fritz - post 7 Years War. But he did get it back! Behold. Anyway. Once Fritz invaded Silesia, Joseph Wenzel was in the suddenly in the sucky position of having a third of his posessesions owned by Prussia. While simultanously MT to raise the money her Dad didn't leave her taxed her nobles massively for the war effort. You can see where this is going. Joseph Wenzel, possibly the sole noble who spent his remaining life being both a vassal of Fritz and a vassal of MT (for whom he was fighting) due to the position of his territories, eventually offered to sell the statue to Fritz. In a letter sealed with a seal showing Alexander the Great. Which he never used before or after. Gay iconography: we have it.

- Fritz, however, did not accept when the offer was first made, in 1743. He accepted in 1747. At which point Joseph Wenzel had tried to sell it to others, including the Saxons, which is why Algarotti already knew of it. (He was the art collector in Dresden at the time.) Algarotti's return and the purchase of the statue by Fritz happened in the same year, as we already knew via Mildred's beautiful story. There's a letter describing the statue to Fritz which says that Algarotti will be able to confirm how beautiful it is.

- Once he'd decided to buy the statue, Fritz was micromanaging the transport etc. Our author definitely ascribes to the "homage to Katte" theory. He also provides context by naming the books on Hadrian and Antinuous available to Fritz at the time, as proven via the Sanssouci library. (Which has only the early positive descriptions, none of the late era negative ones. All in French translation, btw, Fritz didn't read them in Greek or Latin.)

- FW2 did not immediately remove the statue from Sanssouci once Fritz was dead. He had it moved from Sanssouci to the Berlin town residence in the early 1790s, and placed very near his personal rooms (though in the areas open to the public. Our author points out that in the same room, there were a lot of depictions of loyal soldiers giving their lives for their lords. Which context also can be seen in the light of Prussia's increasing series of military disasters and the need to boost up morale.

- then under FW3 Prussia lost to Napoleon, and thus the statue spent a few years in Paris, along with a great many other art pieces. By which point it was renamed from Antinous to Ganymede, so, still sticking with the gay iconography. Then in 1815 it was retrieved and brought back to Berlin. And only then did the "Praying Boy" name start to get listed in the documents.

There are other interesting things here, like about the (gay) art expert Winckelmann (v.v. famous and important to German classicism) , about Joseph Wenzel's career and how all the references to the statue during Fritz' time emphasized it had come to him straight from Eugene, or about the various people involved in the transport. But these were for me the most important aspects.

Re: Antinous - The Reader's Report

[mildred_of_midgard]

Wonderful, thank you! As usual, your speed continues to amaze and awe.

Much of this had turned up in my research, but there were some interesting new things, especially:

Our author points out that in the same room, there were a lot of depictions of loyal soldiers giving their lives for their lords. Which context also can be seen in the light of Prussia's increasing series of military disasters and the need to boost up morale.

I knew he'd put it near his personal rooms and changed the iconography from homoerotic to self-sacrifice to one's emperor, but not how he'd done it. Evolving iconography in an art historical context is a particular, albeit casual, interest of mine. (It was easier when I could look at art history books, which do not lend themselves well to e-books and are thus almost never converted, and cost a million dollars when they are.)

Once he'd decided to buy the statue, Fritz was micromanaging the transport etc.

Did not know that, should have predicted it. ;)

Knew about Eugene being one of the previous owners but not the immediately preceding owner, did not know about Philippsburg (remember, Voltaire was also at Philippsburg!) or Wenzel (or rather, I suspect I had immediately forgotten everything I skimmed about Wenzel).

Had either never learned or forgotten that it was named Ganymede during the Paris years. When you say "by which point" do you mean it was renamed by the French, or that the Prussians had already renamed it?

In a letter sealed with a seal showing Alexander the Great. Which he never used before or after. Gay iconography: we have it.

Did not know this! Oh, man. That's awesome. So is the quote from Liselotte. Liselotte would know!

He also provides context by naming the books on Hadrian and Antinuous available to Fritz at the time, as proven via the Sanssouci library.

Care to share? I think they were named in the article that drew heavily on this monograph that's in our library, but it's possible the article author was not comprehensive. I think I remember that Fritz had annotated or underlined or otherwise marked the Antinous passage in one of the books, thereby confirming that he knew and was interested in this story specifically?

Our author definitely ascribes to the "homage to Katte" theory.

You know, Fritz, I understand you were badly traumatized, but it would be helpful for us if you could *talk* about these things. Anyway, it remains my headcanon.

Thank you ever so much for the reader's report! I will at some point do an Antinous write-up for Rheinsberg. Which cahn did not at all predict would help push chronologies off the first page of results. :P.

Re: Antinous - The Reader's Report

[selenak]

Fritz had Pausanias and Cassius Dio, both in hand-bound copies with additional handwritten pages in his library. Alas, the Cassius Dio was a victim of WWII, but the Pausanias is still there; our author says the handwritten remarks are mostly text excerpts. And, as he points out, what Fritz didn‘t own were the more negative Hadrian and Antinous descriptions, as given by Aurelius Victor and in the anonymous Historia Augusta.

Ganymed: actually, he was called that twice. During his first time in France (age of Louis XIV); the first document we have when he‘s referred to as Antinous for sure, says our author, is Algarotti‘s letter while working for the Saxons when Wenzel is shopping him around. Then he becomes Ganymed again for the first time in writing in a catalogue of an art books & copies shop in 1794, the first time reasonably cheap plastic copies are sold. Catalogue is from the Rost‘sche Kunstbuchhandlung in Leipzig. (And it’s definitely this statue, the catalogue even says it’s the one owned by the One King. Simultanously, German tour guide books still call him Antinous as well until 1823, the last time he‘s referred to under that name; during his second time in France, with Napoleon, he was back to Ganymed as well. And then, in the second half of the 19th century, „Praying Boy“ becomes the new designation.

Re: Antinous - The Reader's Report

[mildred_of_midgard]

Perfect, thank you on both counts!