Settee (one of a pair) (part of a set) ca. 1763–64 Attributed to Johann Michael Bauer German (born Westheim) Part of a larger set, this remarkable corner settee and its pair, also in the Museum, were commissioned by one of the most powerful figures in eighteenth-century Franconia, Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim (1708–1779). Prince-bishop of Würzburg and, after 1757, also of Bamberg, Seinsheim divided his time between two official residences in those cities and his three summer castles, Veitschöchheim, Werneck, and Seehof.[1] Preferring the country to the city, Seinsheim spent about three months

Settee (one of a pair) (part of a set) ca. 1763–64 Attributed to Johann Michael Bauer German (born Westheim) Part of a larger set, this remarkable corner settee and its pair, also in the Museum, were commissioned by one of the most powerful figures in eighteenth-century Franconia, Adam Friedrich von Seinsheim (1708–1779). Prince-bishop of Würzburg and, after 1757, also of Bamberg, Seinsheim divided his time between two official residences in those cities and his three summer castles, Veitschöchheim, Werneck, and Seehof.[1] Preferring the country to the city, Seinsheim spent about three months a year outside Bamberg, at Seehof, where he enjoyed walking and hunting. He was fond of gardens and did much to embellish the late-seventeenth-century castle and especially its park, where he ordered that a maze, a theater, and a cascade with grotto and trelliswork arcades be 1761 he also resumed work on one of the ancillary buildings at Seehof, the Franckenstein Schlösschen. This garden pavilion at the east end of the orangery and greenhouses had been conceived as a place where the prince could retreat from the strict etiquette at his court. Built by the architect Johann Jakob Michael Küchel (1703–1769) for one of Seinsheim's predecessors, Johann Philipp Anton von Franckenstein, prince-bishop from 1746 to 1753, the Schlösschen had been left unfinished at the time of Franckenstein's death. Contemporary records indicate that Seinsheim decided to have its two main rooms, the Saal and the Audience Chamber (also called the Arbor Room, or berceau), embellished with frescoes and stuccowork. All four walls of the Audience Chamber were to be decorated as an illusionary arbor with trelliswork and floral festoons. Franz Anton Ermeltraut, court painter at Würzburg, was commissioned to execute a small trompe l'oeil ceiling fresco. It is not known when this was finished because the work was delayed by occasional disputes between the patron and the painter and the

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