felis: (House renfair)
felis ([personal profile] felis) wrote in [personal profile] cahn 2021-03-19 10:59 am (UTC)

Re: Manger, Knobelsdorff - and Peter Keith! -- or not?

another loss to WWII, I guess

I suspect so, given that it wasn't mobile like some other interiors that were stored elsewhere. Probably melted when the Palace burned down.

someone older, notoriously prickly and not prone to mince words as Knobelsdorff also trusts and likes him (enough so to single him out in his last will), I think a case can be made of Peter being another who is good at being diplomatic

You know what I had to think of? Lehndorff's mention of Peter's "English manners". If, as Fritz says in his eulogy, Knobelsdorff regarded courtesy/social trappings ("complaisance" in the French original) as an inconvenience, he might have liked it if Peter had a more direct style perhaps.

BUT. re: confusion of Keiths. While I think the Knobelsdorff/Keith friendship is probably sound, Engel might have misattributed the letter to Peter! Because I just googled the ending phrase - "De Votre Majesté Le plus humble et plus obéissant serviteur Keith" - and found a different letter from JAMES Keith that ended exactly like that. James Keith, whom Fritz made governor of Berlin in 1749, and who therefore might have had a reason to talk about bridges with Fritz as well. It's possible that the papers in the state archive records identify Peter by more than just "Keith", but if the letter is all there is? Hm. Huge grain of salt here.

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