Representation...des Chateaux de Weissenstein ...Pommersfeld und Geibach

This 1728 hand-colored engraving by Salomon Kleiner offers a grand architectural survey of the Baroque palace of Weissenstein at Pommersfelden, one of the most spectacular noble residences in early 18th-century Germany. Commissioned by the Prince-Bishop Lothar Franz von Schönborn, Weissenstein was a showpiece of German Baroque ambition, and Kleiner — one of the foremost architectural engravers of his era — was the ideal chronicler to immortalize it. Born in 1700, Kleiner was just 28 years old when this work was published, yet it already demonstrates the meticulous draughtsmanship and sweeping compositional clarity that would define his career. His body of work, as seen in related Met holdings such as his engravings of Prince Eugene of Savoy's residences and Viennese garden plans, reveals a sustained dedication to documenting aristocratic architecture across Central Europe. The hand-coloring elevates this print beyond a technical document into something decorative and immersive — pale washes of green, ochre, and blue animate the gardens, facades, and sky, giving viewers a vivid sense of how these estates were meant to dazzle. Together, Kleiner's prints serve as an invaluable visual archive of a world of palatial grandeur that was already beginning to fade.