II. - Schloss Schwetzingen

Grupello put up in Düsseldorf fi rst, and in
Mannheim afterwards. 91 In Schwetzingen it
provided a focal point at the end of a lawn,
lined with trellis and set with small fl ower
parterres extending in front of the south quarter-circle
pavilion’s dining hall. 92 The rest of
the area was laid out as a bosquet. Early in the
19th century, Zeyher converted the seahorse
garden into a landscaped area, but retained
the topography of the Baroque lawn. In
this he probably followed an undated plan by
Sckell (Fig. 13), that shows precisely this type
of conversion. The seahorse sculpture was moved
to the Karlsruhe palace garden in 1823/24,
but today a copy is back in place; the original
is kept at Schwetzingen too, in the southern
quarter-circle pavilion.
B.11. The “Star Avenue” Hunting Park
Around 1757, work on a hunting park had
started in a stretch of woodland called “Am
Knaubloch”, south of the palace gardens. In
this the court clarinettist, Michel Quallenberg,
tried his hand at the rôle of “entreprenneur”
on his own account. Due to its layout,
the hunting park was known as the star avenue,
or alternatively as the “Java”; the origins
of this term are unknown. It consisted of eight
lanes radiating from a common centre, and
three circular paths laid out in concentric circles
around it. Between two of the lanes there
was a spiralling path, the so-called Schneckenallee.
93 The paths were lined with hornbeam
hedges; seating was provided by wooden
benches, 94 that were later replaced with
stone couches. In 1759, work on the star avenue
came to a temporary standstill. In Pigage’s
ideal plan of 1762 (cp. Fig. 3), the star avenue
took up more space than the garden itself.
In reality, however, it was never built in the
planned dimensions. It was used as a hunting
park from 1770; in that year it received an enclosing
fence and a groundskeeper’s house,
91 Martin 1933, pp. 323-324.
92 cp. GLA 221/46, Protocollum Commissionale 1795 and Fig. 4,
Pigage 1767 and later plans.
93 cp. plan in GLA 391/36120, a redrawing of a plan from 1782.
94 GLA 221/ 440 of 23.1.1759.
III. Schwetzingen – Historical Context
and pheasants and later fallow deer were released.
95
B.12. The kitchen gardens
From 1754 onwards, Petri laid out new
orchards and vegetable gardens along with
the pleasure garden, and had them secured
with walls and wrought-iron gates. 96 He had
ordered apple, pear, cherry and peach trees
from Haarlem in 1753. 97 Another batch of
fruit trees was delivered in 1756, among them
63 types of pear, 53 types of apple, 32 types
of peach and 24 types of apricot. Lining the
north wall were greenhouses; 98 here and in
hotbed boxes, fruits and vegetables, even
asparagus, were started.
Between 1762 and 1766, Pigage enlarged
the kitchen gardens as well as the pleasure
garden. The greenhouses in the vegetable
garden were rebuilt, and an additional
pineapple house as well as “serres volantes
à la Hollandaise” were built. In the orchard
“bosquets de fruits”, regular plantations of
fruit trees, were created. 99 The enclosing walls
95 GLA 221/ 440.
96 Martin 1933, p. 146.
97 Martin 1933, p. 142.
98 for details cp. Heber 1986, pp. 316-317.
99 GLA 213/110 of 24.7.1764, Heber 1986, p. 316.
III.
Fig. 13: Friedrich Ludwig
Sckell, undated plan of the
seahorse garden (Mannheim,
Reiß-Engelhorn-Museen).
143