Video series

Learn more about the portrait of Eliza by the English painter William Beechey from the curator Dr. Katharina Bechler.

In the video, Uta Werner-Ullrich presents the king's daughter by birth as a lover and collector of caricatures: a medium that had a wedding at the time and did not exempt her from crude mockery either.

Our restorer Gerd Hermann expertly demonstrates a piece of furniture by the Württemberg ebenist Johannes Klinckerfuß (1770-1831). It is a gem from a great and international career as an artisan.

The head of the garden department, Dr. Inken Formann, directs the viewer's attention to the flora of Landgravine Elizabeth of Hesse-Homburg. She contributed important new findings to the exhibition. It came to light that the king's daughter Eliza had numerous plants delivered to the Taunus from Kew Gardens in London. Thus she cultivated her passion for gardens and botany with special and exotic plants in her new home in Hessen-Homburg.

Landgravine Elizabeth's love of the world of plants and gardening is a focal point of the exhibition about her life. Her relationship with the Briton Joseph Banks (1742-1820) is also portrayed. As a young man, the naturalist took part in James Cook's South Sea expedition in 1768-1771, as well as in many other expeditions during his career. With him, many exotic plants came to Europe and were grown in the greenhouses of London's Royal Gardens at Kew, among other places. Elizabeth's stupendous botanical knowledge came from there, always encouraged by her acquaintance with Banks. The small county was to benefit greatly from this wealth of knowledge, as Stella Junker reports in the video.

A painted glass cup at the court of the House of Hesse-Homburg is not just a painted glass cup. It has a charming message encoded on it. Sibylle Hoffmann-Merz, museum educator at the State Palaces and Gardens, presents it and another gift that Landgrave Frederick VI Joseph (1769-1829) and his wife, the English king's daughter Elizabeth (1770-1840), may have given each other.

In Bad Homburg Palace there is a Davenport Desk, a fabulous piece of furniture that Landgravine Elizabeth of Hesse-Homburg herself might have used. At least one painting depicts her with such a changeable little table. Ruxandra-Maria Jotzu, museum educator of the State Palaces and Gardens of Hesse, will introduce you to the English, multifunctional "mute" servant and its history.

Museum educator Andrea Wellenger is impressed by the creative power of Landgravine Elizabeth of Hesse-Homburg. Born the daughter of a king, she grew up at the court in London but also under favourable circumstances: Respected artists taught her. Particularly appealing among the artistic techniques she learned was the lacquering and decorating of panels in the China fashion.