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Residenz Museum

Ahnengalerie (Ancestral Gallery)

On becoming Elector in 1726 Karl Albrecht immediately commissioned his court architect, the French-trained Joseph Effner, to design an ancestral gallery. The young architect François Cuvilliés was involved in designing the decoration of this magnificent room; Wenzeslaus Miroffsky created the gilt carving on the walls; and Johann Baptist Zimmermann of Wessobrunn was responsible for the stucco.

Over 100 portraits of members of the Wittelsbach family are let into the carved gilt panelling of the gallery.

In creating the Ahnengalerie, Karl Albrecht not only erected a monument to past generations of Wittelsbachs; he also drew attention to the family's wide-ranging connections by marriage as a means of emphasising the current importance of the dynasty. It was from these connections that he derived his claim to the Imperial throne. He advanced this claim successfully, and in 1742 in Frankfurt am Main he was crowned Emperor Karl VII of the Holy Roman Empire.

Porzellankabinett (Porcelain Cabinet)

This richly decorated room is reached via a door from the Ahnengalerie and was created by Elector Karl Albrecht for the Wittelsbach ancestral treasure. This collection of precious objects, displayed as an embodiment of the family's rank, formed an appropriate adjunct to the Ahnengalerie, because the Gallery served to present and legitimise the Wittelsbach claim to the Imperial throne.

Precious vessels, jewellery, crowns and insignia were displayed in the glass cases, their reflections in the mirrors producing an impression of boundless magnificence.

The Wittelsbach treasure increased greatly after the 18th century. Today, it is on show in ten rooms in the Königsbau ( Treasury). Its place in the room next to the Ahnengalerie has been taken by a display of fine porcelain from Meissen, Sèvres, Nymphenburg and Frankenthal.

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