view from garden perspective
This was the summer residence of Clemens August, Kurfürst and archbishop of Cologne (with some other titles and reign), for instance Hochmeister des Deutschen Ritterordens, for some time brother of a current emperor (1742-1745), Clemens August himself living 1700 - 1765, being well known to have lived with much expenses, occasionally attacked cause his worldly behavior and dying with much debts.
The whole might be called a smaller German Versaille imitation (Clemens August took a larger education in France), however, it's rather big, surrounded by a great park. In about 2 km distance a second, smaller, Schloss is located, "Schloss Falkenlust", build in the same time, dedicated to hunt with falcons.
This is the front side of the Schloss, following the entry to the region "Schloss plus garden" and one could drive with the chariot inside the Schloss (middle door), then leaving the chariot and entering the staircase region, which might take something of 1/7th or 1/8th of the whole building. Well, one might speak of a staircase temple, although it's said by the Schloss personal, that according the ideas of 18th century the staircase was "too small" according the importance of the commissioner. Sic, one has to accept that.
The same staircase-temple principle was used by the same commissioner and by the same architect (Balthasar Neumann) ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Balthasar_Neumann
for the much smaller Kreuzberg chapel (Bonn), which consists only of a single staircase and a balcony with 3 persons in stone ...
... opened only at Good Friday and Saturday of Eastern each year.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/c ... en_07c.jpg
The dominating object of the staircase in the Augustusburg is the ceiling, made by Carlo Carlone, who was specialized on ceilings ..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Carlone
whereby the Italian wikipedia article shows a rather endless list of his works
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Innocenzo_Carloni
... and the Brühler work is only one between many others. The ceiling is a fresco, and the actual painting working days on it (without preparation etc.) had been 13 days (!), cause fresco painting had to be done very quick.
The theme somehow is a condemnation of the use of too much alcohol.
But ... alas, this all is impressive, but not interesting for us.
... all from http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?p=43488614 , which has some more related pictures.
The ceiling is carried by 10 pair of gods or other allegories, each pair carrying one "real" or "artificial" static function. This is the interesting detail ..(I hope, you discover some of the smaller figures at the pictures, they carry the ceiling, as I said it).
These are (according description) starting with the pair, which you see at left top, when you enter the staircase (frontal view) and then in a circle to the right:
front:
Jupiter - Minerva
Hercules - Venus
right:
Pan - and a Nymph
Mars - Victoria
Poetry - Fame
back:
Reign - Fortune
Platon (or Philosophy) - envy
left:
Samson - Art (painting)
Apollo - Diane
Vulcan - Ceres
The figures are occasionally recognizable, occasionally explainable with goodwill and occasionally rather strange.
A few other figures are also in the room (mostly centralized, but I couldn't realize their function), but the 10 pairs are recognizable as a group.
Well, some gods are missing
Juno ... but Clemens August couldn't marry, cause he was an arch bishop.
Vesta ... is often not included
Bacchus ... the whole central motif (ceiling) is turned against alcoholism
Neptun ... Germany didn't participate too much in the exploration of the world via ships in this period
Mercury ... strange, but Clemens August was not a merchant
Somehow a personalized Olympus, somehow one entered the rooms of a person "with decisions"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clemens_August_of_Bavaria
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clemens_Au ... von_Bayern
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WLCjWEeDAc
mostly the garden and the outside view
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Ten Pairs were somehow a motif in the neuf preux /neuf preuse model (occasionally enlarged to 10 pairs) and in the Trionfi card development (Boiardo Tarocchi, Sola-Busca-Tarocchi). 16 gods appeared in the Michelino deck.