Slowly trying to catch up on my backlog of non-Peter posts...
I've been periodically dipping into the book I mentioned a while ago, Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany 1750-1950, the one about collecting royal souvenirs. I'm not really here for the scholarly sociological analysis, but I am *totally* here for the anecdotes.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV's response to the relic-gifts was ambivalent at best, and he often rejected these tokens of sympathy and affection. In some cases, the king refused the gifts because they crossed the line of good taste. In 1851, Adolf Zuckwer offered Friedrich Wilhelm IV a "family heirloom": the executioner's sword used to behead Hans Hermann von Katte for trying to help the young Frederick escape his father's court in 1730. To Zuckwer, it was an object of great "historical value" and family pride. To the king, it harbored too many unpleasant associations: not only did the sword mark one of the darkest, most distressing periods in Frederick's life, but the allusion to decapitation - a specter that had haunted Friedrich Wilhelm IV only three years earlier in 1848 – would not have gone unnoticed (at least by the king). And finally, it was surely unpalatable to the king to accept the largess of an executioner's son, reviled as that profession was. In this instance, Friedrich Wilhelm IV did not even attempt to be polite in rejecting the gift.
No quotes on what "did not even attempt to be polite" means, but the author is very good about citations, having ~100 footnotes per chapter, and she's quoting letters from the Prussian state archives here, so I will take her word for it.
So once upon a time, we learned that Fritz had to stop playing the flute in the late 1770s because of tooth loss, and I wondered why he didn't use false teeth, since they had definitely been invented (any American schoolchild knows about George Washington). Well, this anecdote proves that he did at least use false teeth, and tells us more about how he was losing his teeth in the late 1770s:
In Dr. Kuntzmann's case, the problem lay not in his personal background, but in the relics' intimate nature. The son of Frederick's dentist, Kuntzmann possessed two fake teeth that had graced the philosopher-king's mouth. As in other questions of hygiene, Frederick was notorious for his poor dental health; already in 1759, he complained to the Marquis d'Argens that he was missing half his teeth. Kuntzmann's false teeth, however, had filled a gap created not by decay, but by the king's violent passion for music. In 1777, the king had dropped a sheet of music while playing the flute. Bending down quickly to pick it up, Frederick had hit his head against the music stand and knocked out a front tooth. Kuntzmann's father had fashioned a tooth for him at that point, which was itself knocked out two years later in what Kuntzmann tactfully called "a very similar accident." Kuntzmann Sr. crafted a second fake tooth, which was returned to him , however, as it proved defective. Kuntzmann Jr. now sent the two teeth, in a jar, to Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
I didn't realize he'd had the ironic fate of not being able to play the flute in part because he had lost teeth while playing the flute! (I wouldn't be surprised if they were already loose at that point and that contributed to the accident.) Related, I also vaguely recall a riding accident in the 1740s or 1750s, where (I think) Wilhelmine advised AW to show some concern, it would make Fritz feel better.
This next part made me laugh:
In the late eighteenth century, J. F. Krieger, director of a royal demesne in Halberstadt, began collecting all images of Frederick the Great that passed his way, from frontispieces of monographs and engravings in hymn books to advertisements on tobacco wrappers and decks of playing cards, until his collection numbered in the thousands of images.
Mildred: Seems normal.
In the later nineteenth century, Krieger's passion would come to seem natural, in no way out of the ordinary; in the late eighteenth century, Krieger's forty year pursuit of "every picture with Frederick's visage, whether masterpiece or grimace (Fratze)," was still unusual enough that he had to excuse his hobby by styling it as an act of piety.
Mildred: Hahaha, well, THAT'S gonna change! :D
For example:
...two relics that Ledebur had formerly described as the alpha and omega of his collection: the box containing Frederick's umbilical cord and the cloth that wiped the sweat of death off his brow. In his "Wanderung" of 1833, Ledebur had described these "gems" as prompting a “moving empathy" in the viewer. Later, they would again elicit rapturous emotions from visitors to the Hohenzollern Museum.
In contrast, poor Heinrich gets short shrift:
In some cases, the objects were not even given the veneer of art or heirloom by the royal sellers. In 1804, Prince Heinrich's entire estate (furniture, bed sheets, and all) was auctioned off unceremoniously to the highest bidder, with the objects' prices set according to their practical value, not their symbolic import as having belonged to Frederick the Great's brother.
If I come across more fun anecdotes in my occasional dipping in, I'll pass them on!
Royal souvenirs
I've been periodically dipping into the book I mentioned a while ago, Monarchy, Myth, and Material Culture in Germany 1750-1950, the one about collecting royal souvenirs. I'm not really here for the scholarly sociological analysis, but I am *totally* here for the anecdotes.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV's response to the relic-gifts was ambivalent at best, and he often rejected these tokens of sympathy and affection. In some cases, the king refused the gifts because they crossed the line of good taste. In 1851, Adolf Zuckwer offered Friedrich Wilhelm IV a "family heirloom": the executioner's sword used to behead Hans Hermann von Katte for trying to help the young Frederick escape his father's court in 1730. To Zuckwer, it was an object of great "historical value" and family pride. To the king, it harbored too many unpleasant associations: not only did the sword mark one of the darkest, most distressing periods in Frederick's life, but the allusion to decapitation - a specter that had haunted Friedrich Wilhelm IV only three years earlier in 1848 – would not have gone unnoticed (at least by the king). And finally, it was surely unpalatable to the king to accept the largess of an executioner's son, reviled as that profession was. In this instance, Friedrich Wilhelm IV did not even attempt to be polite in rejecting the gift.
No quotes on what "did not even attempt to be polite" means, but the author is very good about citations, having ~100 footnotes per chapter, and she's quoting letters from the Prussian state archives here, so I will take her word for it.
So once upon a time, we learned that Fritz had to stop playing the flute in the late 1770s because of tooth loss, and I wondered why he didn't use false teeth, since they had definitely been invented (any American schoolchild knows about George Washington). Well, this anecdote proves that he did at least use false teeth, and tells us more about how he was losing his teeth in the late 1770s:
In Dr. Kuntzmann's case, the problem lay not in his personal background, but in the relics' intimate nature. The son of Frederick's dentist, Kuntzmann possessed two fake teeth that had graced the philosopher-king's mouth. As in other questions of hygiene, Frederick was notorious for his poor dental health; already in 1759, he complained to the Marquis d'Argens that he was missing half his teeth. Kuntzmann's false teeth, however, had filled a gap created not by decay, but by the king's violent passion for music. In 1777, the king had dropped a sheet of music while playing the flute. Bending down quickly to pick it up, Frederick had hit his head against the music stand and knocked out a front tooth. Kuntzmann's father had fashioned a tooth for him at that point, which was itself knocked out two years later in what Kuntzmann tactfully called "a very similar accident." Kuntzmann Sr. crafted a second fake tooth, which was returned to him , however, as it proved defective. Kuntzmann Jr. now sent the two teeth, in a jar, to Friedrich Wilhelm IV.
I didn't realize he'd had the ironic fate of not being able to play the flute in part because he had lost teeth while playing the flute! (I wouldn't be surprised if they were already loose at that point and that contributed to the accident.) Related, I also vaguely recall a riding accident in the 1740s or 1750s, where (I think) Wilhelmine advised AW to show some concern, it would make Fritz feel better.
This next part made me laugh:
In the late eighteenth century, J. F. Krieger, director of a royal demesne in Halberstadt, began collecting all images of Frederick the Great that passed his way, from frontispieces of monographs and engravings in hymn books to advertisements on tobacco wrappers and decks of playing cards, until his collection numbered in the thousands of images.
Mildred: Seems normal.
In the later nineteenth century, Krieger's passion would come to seem natural, in no way out of the ordinary; in the late eighteenth century, Krieger's forty year pursuit of "every picture with Frederick's visage, whether masterpiece or grimace (Fratze)," was still unusual enough that he had to excuse his hobby by styling it as an act of piety.
Mildred: Hahaha, well, THAT'S gonna change! :D
For example:
...two relics that Ledebur had formerly described as the alpha and omega of his collection: the box containing Frederick's umbilical cord and the cloth that wiped the sweat of death off his brow. In his "Wanderung" of 1833, Ledebur had described these "gems" as prompting a “moving empathy" in the viewer. Later, they would again elicit rapturous emotions from visitors to the Hohenzollern Museum.
In contrast, poor Heinrich gets short shrift:
In some cases, the objects were not even given the veneer of art or heirloom by the royal sellers. In 1804, Prince Heinrich's entire estate (furniture, bed sheets, and all) was auctioned off unceremoniously to the highest bidder, with the objects' prices set according to their practical value, not their symbolic import as having belonged to Frederick the Great's brother.
If I come across more fun anecdotes in my occasional dipping in, I'll pass them on!