46: Paintings shown at the upper foyer

Before we proceed to the chapel, let us take a quick look at the paintings in the upper foyer. On the wall above the elevator on the right and left, we see the parents of Field Marshal Peter, Count Christian Ludwig, who moved to Russia, and Countess Amalie Ludovika, née Countess Finck von Finckenstein. She died in the fire after the birth of her daughter Amelie.

Between her parents you find the portrait of Amelie saved by Ossip. She married Count Dorothéus Ludwig von Keller, a Prussian minister and diplomat. Her daughter Marie Wilhelmine as the wife of Prince Ivan Ivanovich Bariatinsky eventually became Leonilla’s mother.

The portrait next to the window depicting Tsar Alexander I was painted by George Dawe. It can be found almost identically in the Saint Petersburg Hermitage and other palaces in Russia, because Dawe was the court painter to the imperial family. Incidentally, the picture of Princess Lieven in the winter garden was also made by him, as was the drawing of the dwarf Ossip mentioned earlier. 

“Our family has, including me, existed for 25 generations now”, recounts Prince Alexander. “160 years ago, the painter Josef Miller tried to present my ancestors as realistically as possible for the ancestral gallery in the stairwell. The paintings unfortunately had to be sold again 60 years later. Luckily, my son Prince Heinrich was able to buy back two portraits, the 13th century Counts Johann of Sponheim and Engelbert of Sayn.”

Now you may proceed via the passageway and winter garden towards the chapel.