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Schleißheim New Palace

Chamber Chapel in the Electress's Apartment

 

The original 17th-century scagliola panels (imitation inlaid marble made of stucco), which, according to the memoires of Max Emanuel, were transferred from the Munich Residence to Schleißheim, have been reinstalled in the Chamber Chapel and in the Stucco-work Cabinet below it.

They are the work of Wilhelm Pfeiffer, known as Fistulator, head of the famous family of court scagliola artists under Elector Maximilian I. The panels were installed by Johann Georg Baader in 1725, who also added the scagliola panelling of the altar niche and table, the window niches and other parts of the walls, which is decorated with the graceful strapwork ornamentation of the 1720s.

The ceiling of the chapel is particularly attractive. It is decorated with elegant stucco ornamentation by Johann Baptist Zimmermann and opens at the top to form an oval "lantern" through which the ceiling painting of the Holy Trinity by Nikolaus Gottfried Stuber can be seen. On the balustrade of the lantern sit lively stucco figures of the virtues and putti, sculptured almost in the round.

The altarpiece, the "Assumption of Mary", is from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens. The painting, which was part of the original furnishings, was presented to Elector Max Emanuel on 20 January 1726 by Graf Johann Fugger.