Grünes Gewölbe: The Grand Cure

Gemälde vom Empfang Friedrich Christians von Sachsen in Venedig

The Grand Cure

A disabled Saxon Prince and his Tour of Italy

This is the first exhibition to be devoted to Elector Friedrich Christian of Saxony (1722-63), who succeeded King August III in 1763 for just 74 days. Given his brief reign, few are aware of the prince's profound physical disabilities, akin to cerebral palsy, which prevented him from standing or walking without assistance and made simple tasks like eating and dressing difficult.

Exhibition Site Residenzschloss

DATES 09/05/2018—19/08/2018

The marriage of his sister Maria Amalia to the Kingof Naples in May 1738 inspired their parents to send the fifteen-year-old heir to the throne on an impromptu journey to Italy, for life-saving medical treatments. This exceptional two-year adventure was amply documented, allowing us to precisely reconstruct the prince's route and daily experiences as he travelled from Dresden to Naples, Rome, Florence,Milan and Venice. Like the able-bodied Grand Tourists hemet along the way, he also travelled incognito with an entourage, enjoyed celebrity status, and collected art, relics, books and ephemera for shipment home. Some of the Italian gifts and souvenirs have been identified in museums, archives and libraries and are presented and contextualized in the intimate setting of the Sponselraum.

Porträt des jungen Kurprinzen Friedrich Christian von Sachsen — **Rosalba Carriera, Kurprinz Friedrich Christian von Sachsen (1722-1763), 1739**

**Schlangenhenkelvase mit Bacchus und Ariadne, Carlo Antonio Grue, Castelli (Italien), um 1705/15, Majolika**

**Unbekannter Künstler, Drei Medaillen in Erinnerung an die Italienreise von Prinz Friedrich Christian Sachsen, 1739–40, Vergoldetes Kupfer, Silber und Bronze.**

Marmorskulptur — **Gladiator, Römisch oder frühes 18. Jahrhundert, Marmor**

Pierre Parrocel (1670–1739) nach Michelangelo Specchi (1684–1750) Zweite ephemere Architektur anlässlich der „Festa della Chinea” im Jahr 1739 in Rom: La Felicità publica (Das Gemeinwohl). Radierung, 1739

August the Strong and August III both made Grand Tours as teenagers, with the court of Louis XIV and carnival in Venice as their primary targets. Friedrich Christian, by contrast, went to Italy as a medical tourist. Although he would never be cured, the mineral baths and holistic treatments administered abroad did soothe and strengthen the prince's atrophied limbs, allowing him to regain the use of his left hand, bear his own bodyweight and walk short distances with two canes. Of necessity, however, he was mostly carried around Italy in a porte-chaise (sedan chair), even ascending the Leaning Tower of Pisa in this manner.

**Luigi Ughi, Iconografica rappresentatione della inclita città di Venezia: Friderico Christiano Augusti regis filio / Obsequentißimus Ludovicus Ughi Aeques. Aquarellierter Stich**

Since there was no precedent for portraying a disabled heir to the throne, the Prince was chronicled and painted conventionally, as able-bodied, and even thought of himself as such. A glimpse of his handicap is shown in the view of his arrival at Venice in 1739, but it was not until 1761, while in exile in Munich during the Seven Years War, that he was portrayed in a wheelchair. With his premature death from smallpox at the age of 41, however, the Elector's great promise went unfulfilled.