To celebrate the 285th anniversary of the laying of the palace’s foundation stone on 24 May 2021, the Rundāle Palace Museum has prepared an exhibition ‘The Princess of Courland travels. Fanny Biron’s watercolours and drawings’, which presents the work of Fanny Biron (1815–1888) – the great granddaughter of the commissioner of the palace’s construction Duke Ernst Johann of Courland.
Princess Fanny Biron of Courland, married name von Boyen, was an amateur artist who toured Europe from the second half of the 1830s to the end of the 1870s, capturing her impressions in sketchbooks and small drawings or watercolours. Some of them – about 170 works – were gifted to the Rundāle Palace Museum in 2006.
Fanny, the daughter of the Prince Gustav Kalixt Biron of Courland (1780–1821), nephew of the last Duke of Courland, Peter, and Countess Franziska von Maltzan (1790–1849), was an active and social woman. In the 1840s, she ran a small elegant salon for diplomats in Berlin, volunteered for the wounded and sick during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871, joined Verein der Künstlerinnen und Kunstfreundinnen zu Berlin, an association of artists and art lovers, in 1882 and participated in its exhibition. Fanny Biron was well acquainted with the King of Prussia, the later Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm I, with whom she corresponded throughout her life and whose adjutant, subsequent General Leopold Hermann von Boyen (1811–1886), became her husband.
Fanny Biron’s artwork, travel passports and letters attest that she travelled to relax in high society resorts such as Carlsbad (now Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic), enjoyed the delights of Paris for several months, and travelled with her companions or husband to Austria, France, Spain and Italy. Fanny Biron’s travel sketchbooks, small watercolours and drawings depict the castles and cliffs of the Rhine Valley, the landscapes of the Swiss mountains, the ancient architectural monuments of Rome and the views of the French Riviera, as well as several palaces related to the history of the Biron family, such as Gross Wartenberg and Günthersdorf in Silesia (now Syców and Zatonie in Poland), and Rochecotte in France. In 1876, Fanny Biron inherited Löbichau Palace in Saxony, furnished by Duchess of Courland Dorothea.
The exhibition has been arranged as a 19th century salon displaying Fanny Biron’s watercolours and drawings and furnished with period furniture and interior items from the collection of the Rundāle Palace Museum. It is complemented by her sketchbooks from the collection of Prince Ernst Johann Biron of Courland, as well as copies of Fanny Biron’s portraits, travel passports and other documents from the German museums and archives.
Exhibition is open until 30 September 2022.
The exhibition ‘Princess of Courland Travels. Watercolours and drawings by Fanny Biron’ is included in the Museum’s entrance ticket.
Exhibition curator: Baiba Vanaga
Exhibition artist: Lauma Lancmane
Graphic designer: Katrīna Vasiļevska