Schloss Scharfenberg, Saxony is a medieval castle on the southern slopes of the River Elbe mid-way between Dresden and

Meissen Meissen (in German orthography: ''Meißen'', ) is a town of approximately 30,000 about northwest of Dresden on both banks of the Elbe river in the Free State of Saxony, in eastern Germany. Meissen is the home of Meissen porcelain, the Albrecht ...

. It lies in the Klipphausen district of Pegenau. The castle has a panoramic view over the Elbe valley. It has a long-established link to many artists as a Romantic subject. It is currently (2019) run partly as a hotel, taking advantage of its romantic location and atmosphere.

History

1827 Oehme Burg Scharfenberg bei Nacht anagoria

Some 19th century records link the castle to

Henry the Fowler Henry the Fowler (german: Heinrich der Vogler or '; la, Henricus Auceps) (c. 876 – 2 July 936) was the Duke of Saxony from 912 and the King of East Francia from 919 until his death in 936. As the first non-Frankish king of East Francia, he ...

and dates it from 938 A.D. However, there is no evidence to support this claim. The original castle dates from around 1200 A.D. of which some of the western boundary walls and entrance gate remain. Archaeological digs found a circular keep to the west, dating from 1220. The castle is first mentioned in 1227 in a church document in

and it is in the control of the Bishop of Meissen. In 1390 it is controlled by Bernhard von Maltitz and in 1403 Dietrich von Miltitz. The castle remained in the ownership and control of the Von Miltitz family until the Second World War. During this time the castle was badly damaged in the Thirty Years War. As a result, large sections of the inner castle date from the late 17th century. The castle was again besieged and successfully defended against the Swedish army in 1706 during the

Great Nordic War The Great Northern War (1700–1721) was a conflict in which a coalition led by the Tsardom of Russia successfully contested the supremacy of the Swedish Empire in Northern, Central and Eastern Europe. The initial leaders of the anti-Swe ...

. In 1783 an accidental fire destroyed the timber built north side of the courtyard. The timber-built south side survives. In the early 19th century, during the period of the Grand Tour, Scharfenberg became an established Romantic destination, and the architecture was altered to enhance this Romantic image. During this period the Von Miltitz family were great patrons of artists and several famous artists were commissioned to paint the castle. These included Ernst Ferdinand Oehme, Christian Gottfried Körner , Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué , Johann August Apel,

E. T. A. Hoffmann Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann (born Ernst Theodor Wilhelm Hoffmann; 24 January 1776 – 25 June 1822) was a German Romantic author of fantasy and Gothic horror, a jurist, composer, music critic and artist. Penrith Goff, "E.T.A. Hoffmann" in E ...

, Thomas Fearnley,

Johan Christian Clausen Dahl Johan Christian Claussen Dahl (24 February 178814 October 1857), often known as or , was a Danish-Norwegian artist who is considered the first great romantic painter in Norway, the founder of the "golden age" of Norwegian painting, and, by some ...

and

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscape ...

.Helmuth Gröger: Schloss Scharfenberg . In: Castles in Saxony , Publisher Heimatwerk Saxony 1940, p. 129 For various reasons the castle fell empty during the Second World War. It was occupied by various persons displaced by the war in a hostel fashion and was under state control under the Soviet regime. This continued into the 1950s. Although the castle is relatively large it is far from any city and is not a good area to house workers. In the 1960s it opened as a museum, but was generally only of local interest in relation to its neighbouring cities. It still had a residential function and an artist community linked itself to the building, also keen to preserve the castle. These included Achim Freyer, Emil Nolde, Achim Heym, Andreas Reinhardt, Karl-Heinz-Schäfer and Otto Walchau. Through the 1970s and 1980s it was used for civil defence purposes, partly due to its strategic views over the River Elbe. At the reunification of Germany in 1989 all state functions ceased. It was sold privately. Since 2007 it has housed an annual festival of Romantic poetry.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Scharfenberg Castles in Saxony