MUSEUM CORPS DE LOGIS

Enjoy a tour with your family, friends and guests and discover the unique architecture, the fabulous decoration and paintings of Benrath Palace. Visit the outstanding vestibule and overwhelming beauty of the main hall, where the Elector and his guests used to dance and celebrate. Find out more about the physical culture, the astonishing rituals of the time and plunge into the courtly life of the 18th century. 

Our visitor service will be happy to advise you.

During the popular Wandelkonzerte, you have the opportunity to experience early music of the 17th and 18th centuries in the breathtaking setting of the Corps de Logis. After dreaming yourself back to bygone times with the atmospheric and historical sounds of the Neue Düsseldorfer Hofmusik, let your impressions take effect afterwards during the pleasure stroll through the Palace.

During the Schluppenkonzert, the music and instruments of the Elector's time are also brought closer to the very young: How was music made in the past and why is a horn actually called a horn? With stories and questions, many children will have their first contact with early music.

Further information about the Music Year at Benrath Palace can be found here.

• Bags, umbrellas and other luggage please stay in the checkroom.
• Bringing drinks and food in the historical rooms is not allowed.
• Please do not touch anything.
• Please take photos for private purpose only and without flash.
• Photo shoots are allowed only with prior permission.
• Please enter the historical rooms in slippers only. Pregnant women, persons with limited mobility and children up to 6 years of age are excluded from this rule.

The furniture collection at Benrath Palace partly consists of original pieces and partly of acquisitions. It contains lavishly carved console tables, petite vanity tables and elaborately marqueted gambling tables as well as simple chests of drawers and robust dining tables. A large part of the original furniture was lost to changing owners and the turmoil of war during the last two centuries.

When pieces of furniture were purchased during the last decades, it was made sure that they either originate from the Palatine area or from France, since Elector Palatine Carl Theodor and his wife Elisabeth Auguste appreciated this kind of furniture and purchased it for their residences.

Over recent decades, a first-rate collection was put together including a wide range of furniture types, such as a diversity of seating furniture, chests of drawers, vanities (toilet tables), escritoires, dining and console tables.  

On rare occasions, it was possible to purchase pieces of furniture with a direct connection to Benrath Palace, including a chest of drawers and a gambling table by the carpenter of the Electoral Palatine court, Jakob Kieser. Also, a lady’s writing desk, which still has an old inventory list from Benrath attached to it, found its way back to the Palace.

The Benrath Palace and Park Foundation has an exquisite collection of historic clocks, most of which were assembled over the past 50 years to replace the timepieces originally installed in the palace, which have since been lost.

In 2020, the Foundation also succeeded in acquiring a table pendulum from the 18th century, which is significant for the history of the palace, thus considerably enhancing the collection of historical clocks. The collection now includes a clock that was made for the electoral couple Elisabeth Augusta and Carl Theodor. It is the only clock from the original collection that is now back in the palace. The table pendulum from 1775, which came from the art trade, was made by the clockmaker Guillaume Cornille. Cornille was born in 1719 and came to the Electoral Palatine court in Düsseldorf in 1770. The pendulum, signed by him "G. Cornille à Duseldorff", was probably made by Cornille as an introductory piece for the newly built Benrath Palace. Markings in the movement make it clear that the clock must have been at Benrath Palace in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Special thanks go to the Kulturstiftung der Länder, the Vereinigung der Freunde Schloss und Park Benrath e.V. and the Stiftung Roland Weber für Schloss Benrath, without whom the purchase of this important table pendulum would not have been possible.