THE MARKGRÄFIN’S TWO BODIES: THE ARCHITECTURE AND PERFORMANCE OF WILHELMINE’S BAYREUTH

Abstract

This dissertation investigates Markgräfin Wilhelmine von Bayreuth’s (1709 – 1758) architectural patronage and the fashioning of her “body politic,” “body natural,” and the range of personas that inhabited the spaces between the public and private spheres. She used architecture and interior design to perform multiple roles, where the ornamentation of each built space enacted different facets of her royal identity. Central European social customs determined the arrangement and décor of palace architecture. The function, audience, and accessibility of a room were also connected to one’s rank and gender. Because of this, the representation of Wilhelmine’s “bodies” in art and architecture should have reinforced current social customs, which dictated that her visual identity play a subordinated role to that of her husband, Markgraf Friedrich. However, when considering the subtle claims made throughout Wilhelmine’s decorative program as a whole, it is clear that she used architectural splendor and theatricality to subvert these conventions and represented herself as her husband’s equal. The theatrical nature of ornament—as a social agent used to transfer meaning—allowed Wilhelmine to redefine the gender limitations of Magnificence gave her greater agency to perform roles that were often at odds with her limited social and political powers as a woman consort. Previous scholarship on Wilhelmine von Bayreuth has failed to recognize architectural space as an arena for contesting the limitations of social decorum or the differences between the Markgräfin’s public, natural, and semi-private bodies. This project contributes to the field of eighteenth-century studies by contextualizing Wilhelmine von Bayreuth’s commissions within a larger system of European Enlightenment architecture, design, and self-fashioing. Few authors have considered the architectural patronage of non-sovereign consorts in German courts, like Wilhelmine’s, or the prescribed boundaries that gender played in their commissions. This dissertation illustrates the significant contributions that minor courts and non-sovereign noblewomen made to the development of Rococo ornament and architecture. A layered methodological approach—which combines extensive archival research with literature on self-fashioning, orientalism, spatial theory, and gender performance—gives a greater understanding of Wilhelmine’s agency in crafting her range of public, private, and liminal identities.