François de Cuvilliés

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Schloss Türnich.

François de Cuvilliés (23 October 1695, Soignies, Hainault — 14 April 1768, Munich) was a French-born Bavarian decorative designer and architect who was instrumental in bringing the Rococo style to the Wittelsbach court at Munich and to Central Europe in general.

Cuvilliés was so diminutive in stature that it was as a court dwarf he first came to the notice of Max Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, who detected the young dwarf's aptitude and had him tutored in mathematics, then underwrote his further education with Joseph Effner and sent him to Paris, 1720-24, where he trained in the atelier of François Blondel the younger. On his return to Munich he was appointed court architect.

At the Elector's death in 1726, for a time Cuvilliés worked at Schloss Brühl for the Elector's brother, Charles Albert, Elector of Cologne, who had become Elector of Bavaria. He provided designs for the chapel at Brūhl, (1730-40) and the hunting lodge Falkenlust (1729-40) but as Charles Albert's interests shifted to Munich, he also returned to Munich. There his fame was established by the decors of the Reiche Zimmer in the Munich Residenz.

His masterpiece is the Amalienburg in the park at Nymphenburg, built 1734-39, with silvered or gilded naturalist Rococo decorations set off by coloured grounds. As the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica commented, "his style, while essentially thin, is often painfully elaborate and bizarre. He designed mirrors and consoles, balustrades for staircases, ceilings and fireplaces, and in furniture, beds and commodes especially".

The Residenztheater, or "Cuvilliés-theater" (1751-1755) designed and constructed for Elector Max III Joseph by Cuvilliées; though the theatre was bombed during World War II, the carved and gilded boxes had been dismantled and stored for security. Afterwards the Residenztheatre was meticulously recreated in the 1950s.

Park of Schloss Wilhelmsthal near Kassel.

He wrote several treatises on artistic and decorative subjects, which were edited by his son, François de Cuvilliés the Younger, who succeeded his father at the court of Munich. From 1738 he embarked on his life-long series of suites of engravings of wall-panelling, corncies, furniture and wrought-iron work, which were then published at Paris and served to disseminate the Rococo throughout Europe.

[edit] Chief works

Palace in Brühl (1728 bis 1740)
Palais Piosaque de Non (1729; destroyed) in Munich
Wilhelmsthal Palace (1744)
Upgrading of the Munich Residence (1730-1737), including construction of the Cuvilliés Theatre (1750-1753)
Palais Holnstein in Munich (1733-1737)
Amalienburg Palace in the park of Nymphenburg Palace (1734-1739)
Facade of the Theatiner Church (1768)