ABSTRACT
Karl-Eugen however devoted all his attention to the creation of Francisca von Hohenheim, which was to become Francisca’s favourite abode. On a visit to London with his mistress, the English gardens came as a revelation, to him and at Hohenheim, over a period of fifteen years, he accumulated about sixty of those ‘fripperies’— pavilions, kiosks, and cottages—demanded by the tyrannical and dubious taste reigning at that time in Europe. Schloss Hohenheim, the greater part of which stands, is a huge building consisting of a ground floor and a first storey. The interior decoration of Hohenheim was entrusted to the stucco worker Isopi, who, probably in great haste, carried it out in an icy classical style. Francisca’s diary depicts the rustic existence led by the couple at Hohenheim. The Prince de Ligne, the greatest aesthete of his time, declared that Karl-Eugen’s creation ‘was both magnificent and rare’.
