Taste, manners and attitudes—the bel esprit and literary salon in the Nordic countries c. 1800

When the Schimmelmann mansion, one of the remaining architectural gems of the old Frederiksstad situated around Amalienborg Castle in Copen-hagen,1 burned down in April 1992, a great deal of public interest was aroused, and the press dug the story of the Schimmelmann salon out of the smoudering ruins. It was a fascinating tale about the liberal aristocrat and statesman Ernst Schimmelmann, a knowledgeable patron of literature and the visual arts in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. However, the story suffered from a significant omission-Charlotte Schimmelmann, his wife, who in fact was the hostess or bel esprit, as they were then called, was absent.