Usually the employees of the city administration of Fulda meet here for conferences. But the plain office furniture was cleared out and replaced by a large, flat pedestal, on which a tailor’s dummy wearing a robe of Wilhelmine of Prussia stands in front of a huge, enlarged letter. “Fulda exceeded my expectations. The streets are just like in England and the city is one of the prettiest I know in Germany. It is small but extremely pleasant and the castle is very solid and strong,” wrote the mother of Willem Frederik, who later became King Willem I of the Netherlands, to her daughter Luise in 1803 in the best French.
After the diocese of Fulda was secularized, it fell to Prince Willem Frederik of Orange, who ruled and reformed the small principality from 1802 to 1806, as compensation for lost possessions. In memory of its first secular prince and later the first king of the Netherlands, the city of Fulda is now celebrating the 250th birthday of the prince with the magnificent and unusual exhibition “Design & Dynastie. 250 Years of Court Life in Orange-Nassau”. For this summer exhibition, Fulda hired the design expert Nicole Uniquole, who had already enchanted Oranienbaum Castle in 2012 with a similar exhibition “Dutch Design”. [Bis 28. August 2022, Stadtschloss Fulda.]
Uniquole and her stylist Maarten Spruyt chose the castle themselves as an exhibit and designed the exhibition according to the former function of the rooms in Willem’s time. Uniquole primarily combines top objects from the Royal Collections in The Hague with modern Dutch design in all rooms of the baroque city palace designed by Johan Dientzenhofer.
Wilhelmine used to live in today’s conference room when she was in Fulda, and that’s where she wrote the letter I mentioned. The pedestals and bases of the showcases always take up patterns from the respective room, which makes the installations appear organic. And some of the city’s employees rediscover their workplace, because you rarely look at the magnificent ceiling paintings while you’re at work.
Another ex-office room is dedicated to the many German-Dutch marriages of the Orangemen, from Willem I to Beatrix there were always German partners. Fittingly, Uiniquole chose Joep van Lieshout’s “Minimal Kiss Lamp” (2017), a cubist sculpture of a couple made of corten steel with a protective layer of rust.
An eye-catcher at the end of the suite of rooms is the 1:1 reproduction printed on fabric of the huge painting by Innocent Louis Goubaud, which shows Willem I surrounded by his family and courtiers at his enthronement. The crown in front of him was made of copper and had only symbolic meaning.
The story of the prince is not told in the 23 rooms in the classic way with documents and historical illustrations, but mainly on text panels that the royal house expert and historian Reinildis van Ditzhuyzen wrote for each room, as well as the audio guide, which can be heard via smartphone.
In the historic rooms, which meet museum standards, the extremely generous loans from the Royal Collections from the Royal House Archives in The Hague can also be seen, which illustrate court life in Orange.
And although Willem Frederik, as Prince of Fulda, didn’t care much for pomp and splendor, the silver collection “English Tableau” consisting of 252 pieces, a table decoration with bowls, vases and bonbonniere, fits wonderfully into the festive room with red fabric wallpaper and chandeliers. This set from the mid-19th century was used on special royal occasions in the Netherlands.
Not everyone is aware that there was also Fulda porcelain in addition to Meissen porcelain. The designer Simone Doesburg from Grace of Glace has developed new glazes especially for this exhibition, which harmonize wonderfully with the historical porcelain figures from Fulda in the magnificent cabinet on round plates and bowls.
The people of Fulda were probably worried that the new Protestant prince would not appear as pompously as the prince-bishops. In fact, Willem was more modest and economical, but he brought a breath of fresh air to Fulda, modernized the administration and economy, and promoted education. The prince also brought French furniture to the palace, such as a settee that was unknown here before.
This is linked to the presentation of Sebastian Brajkovic’s seemingly melting chaise longue “Lathe V Chair”, whose blurred pattern is reminiscent of a stirred café latte. An eye-catcher is the hall of mirrors with 420 mirrors, the only room with only one door. This is where Willem Frederik liked to withdraw when he wanted to be alone.
Today the room is adorned with a tailor’s dummy wearing a lush dress by Jan Taminiau, who designed several spectacular dresses for Queen Máxima. Máxima’s famous photo of Erwin Olaf, which also adorns the poster, is also included here, as is a youthful photo that Vincent Mentzel took of Prince Willem-Alexander while he was reading in his youthful room at Huis ten Bosch. In this intimate space is also the royal cradle of KP Bazel, an architect of the Amsterdam School, which the citizens of Amsterdam presented to the royal family in 1909 for the birth of Princess Juliana. The daughters of Willem-Alexander and Máxima were also born in this “Amsterdam cradle”.
A special room is dedicated to the more than 60 miniature paintings from the extensive Orangery collection, which is unique in the world and which are being shown in Germany for the first time. Miniature portraits were given away at weddings or carried with you, portraits of royal families who were close to you were collected and the small treasures used as diplomatic gifts. Wilhelmine of Prussia portrayed her children herself.
The magnificent banquet hall on the second floor of the castle is decorated with an inverted huge table. A glass plate on top turns it into an exhibition case in which one can see the royal couple’s current table service in Delft blue, to which the Queen herself made final corrections.
A green hall with artificial flowers by Hella Jongerius is reminiscent of the Johannisberg winery in the Rheingau, which was Willem Frederik’s main source of income and which still exists today. The visitors are released into the castle garden with a staged masked ball with historical costumes by students of the master class for tailoring in Amsterdam. For Willem Frederik, masked balls were a means of anonymously involving different population groups. To this end, he invited independent theater groups to the Orangery.
What Willem had learned during his four years as Prince of Fulda he later used to modernize the Netherlands as king. And with this summer exhibition, Fulda cleverly uses its relationships with the Dutch royal family to add a new facet to the image of the city, which has so far been strongly influenced by Catholicism.
