Dining Hall @museum.de

Dinner is served! The table has been set with candelabra and a centrepiece in the Rococo style.

But unfortunately, nothing much is happening in the kitchen today. Though if I may give you a hint: it’s entirely possible that the castle’s café in the rose garden is open. Here in the dining room, we can only give you a glimpse of what the aristocracy’s domestic lives and lifestyle generally were like in earlier times.

In the early 17th century, Count Philipp Ernst, who built our beautiful courtyard, would have taken his meals at a table set like this one. That’s his portrait, hanging on the end wall. In the recess to the right of the portrait, you can see his armour, which was made to measure for him in Strasbourg. That was where the most famous armourers worked back then. The armour weighs about 50 kilograms, roughly 110 pounds. The count never actually lived to see it finished; he died of kidney stones shortly before it was ready.

In front of the armour is a model of a table tomb that can be viewed in the choir of Langenburg’s municipal church. Count Philipp Ernst and his wife, Anna Maria Countess of Solms, were buried in the church crypt.

This room also features a magnificent stucco ceiling. It was created in 1620 by stucco plasterer Thomas Kuhn from Weikersheim. The six medallions show allegorical images from Greek mythology: Ceres and Vulcan, Apollo and Flora, Neptune and Diana, Mercury and Athena, Mars and Venus, and Bacchus and Ceres. The three medallions contain the symbols of power associated with the Holy Roman Emperor, the King of France and the Pope.