North Tower - Schloss Drachenburg

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Hunt & Billiard Room “No château, no bourgeois dwelling of the 19th century [was] without a Billiard Room.” L’architecture privée au XIXe siècle, 1872. In: Ariès 1999. If formerly reserved for the nobility, the game of billiards and the sport of hunting made great inroads into the bourgeois lifestyle of the 19th century. Which meant that the interior decorator of any haute-bourgeois residence – and of a country house in particular – would have been duty-bound to take these latest leisure pursuits into account. Schloss Drachenburg was no exception and received its own Hunt & Billiard Room to serve as a games room and as a place to keep the hunting guns and trophies. Yet it also offered space for more informal social events. As with the adjoining library, the interior decoration plans were drawn up by the Bonn-based architect Franz Langenberg and a building supervisor at Schloss Drachenburg. The wood furnishings were made in 1884 and 1885 by Pallenberg, a Cologne fi rm. The billiard cues & guns cabinet was conceived especially for this room. Even the glass paintings from the Mayer’sche Institute of Court Art originally incorporated motifs from the world of hunting and, in the process, depicted a “graceful fi gure of a Diana, resplendent in bright colours, created by Professor Schraudolph” as well as hunting outcomes. As such, the Hunt & Billiard Room remained open to viewers and users until 1930. How the room was then furnished during the occupancy of Schloss Drachenburg by the Christian School Brothers can only be the subject of speculation. We are also pretty much in the dark as to the interior furnishings of the 1941 to 1945 period when the castle was used to accommodate the Adolf-Hitler-Schule – i.e. an elite Nazi college. Much of the inventory to Schloss Drachenburg was damaged and stolen after the war, and the same applied to the Hunt & Billiard Room. From 1948, it functioned as a training room for the German Railways but further stock was to vanish between 1960 and 1971 when the castle as a whole stood vacant. It was only in the Paul Spinat era that damaged parts and lacunae in the wood panelling were provisionally repaired using epoxy resin. In addition, the room mutated into a Knight’s Hall in which numerous pieces of equipment and weaponry were placed on exhibition – including an armour-clad wooden horse! Following the restoration process completed in 2006, the decoration was returned to its original appearance, having been reconstructed on the basis of detailed descriptions, photographs and other fi ndings in situ.
Hunt & Billiard Room, postcard 1905 (Archiv Schloss Drachenburg gGmbH) Doublettes of the lower window sections of the wall paintings of the Hunt & Billiard Room. The window panes to the billiard room were made in duplicate at the Mayer’sche Institute of Court Art. Although the glass paintings once installed at Schloss Drachenburg have gone missing, these three coloured doublettes still exist in the Munich archives. Photo from the archives of Mayer’sche Institute in Munich. Billiard Room with a view into the adjoining library, photo 1903 (Familienarchiv Dr. Wenzel Boeckenhoff) The Hunt & Billiard Room Here deprived of its real function and revamped as a “Knight’s Hall” (1983-1985) under the ownership of Paul Spinat (Archiv Schloss Drachenburg gGmbH) 30
Page 1 and 2: Schloss Drachenburg Visitors’ Gui
Page 3 and 4: Intro Dear Visitor, It is a great p
Page 5 and 6: Architectural Decoration The design
Page 7 and 8: Venus Terrace The Venus Terrace pla
Page 9 and 10: „Save the Petersberg!“ The Pete
Page 11 and 12: The Icon of Rhine Romanticism: the
Page 13 and 14: Nordic Summer Houses The second own
Page 15 and 16: Wotan Summer House After Jacob Hube
Page 17 and 18: Sea of Rocks Geologically speaking,
Page 19 and 20: Roland‘s Arch, Rhine Romanticism
Page 21 and 22: Nature Conversationists and the Dra
Page 23 and 24: A view from the east into the Main
Page 25 and 26: Joseph Flüggen: Sleeping Beauty Po
Page 27 and 28: Looking into the Hunting Trophy and
Page 29 and 30: Lacunae in the Main Staircase paint
Page 31 and 32: Reception Room, postcard 1905 (Arch
Page 33 and 34: For further information about the C
Page 35 and 36: Dining Room, postcard 1905 (Archiv
Page 37 and 38: Nibelung Room with a view through t
Page 39 and 40: West side of the Art Gallery with b
Page 41 and 42: Uhland window with lacunae Found 20
Page 43: Looking into the Tavern Room with t
Page 47 and 48: Library and Study Postcard 1903 (Ar
Page 49 and 50: Music Room, postcard 1905 - showing
Page 51 and 52: Layout of the Private Floor Porcela
Page 53 and 54: Preserved glass painting entitled Y
Page 55 and 56: Guest Bedroom, postcard 1905 (Archi
Page 57: Reconstructed stencils in the south

North Tower - Schloss Drachenburg

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