Heinrich von Brühl
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Heinrich, count von Brühl (August 13, 1700 – October 28, 1763), was a German statesman at the court of Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The incumbency of the ambitious politician went along with the decline of both states.
Legacy
Brühl died at Dresden on 28 October 1763, having survived his master only for a few weeks. The new elector, Frederick Christian caused an inquiry to be held into his administration. His fortune including large palaces at Pförten (present-day Brody), Oberlichtenau and Wachau-Seifersdorf was found to amount to a million and a half talers, and was sequestered but afterwards restored to his family. The inquiry showed that Brühl owed his immense fortune to the prodigality of the king rather than to unlawful means of accumulation.
His profusion was often beneficial to the arts and sciences. In 1736 the architect Johann Christoph Knöffel had begun to build a city palace and terrace for the count on the bank of the Elbe in the heart of Dresden. This was originally called "Brühl's Garden" and is today known as Brühl's Terrace. The Brühl Palace at Warsaw was rebuilt according to the designs by Joachim Daniel von Jauch from 1754 to 1759. Brühl was a dedicated collector and protector of the arts - Francesco Algarotti called him a Maecenas. He owned a large gallery of pictures, which was bought by Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1768, and his library of 70,000 volumes was one the biggest private libraries in the Holy Roman Empire.
See also
