The Wittelsbach Treasure

To the roly-poly ruler of Renaissance Bavaria, diamonds were a duke's best friend. Albrecht V nearly emptied the privy purse in 1565 to buy the 27 jewel-studded pieces--primarily cups and goblets--that formed the original Schatzkammer (treasure chamber) of the Wittelsbach family, which ruled Bavaria from 1180 to 1918. But to Albrecht, competing for glory with monarchs from Madrid to Moscow, it was worth every pfennig. Over the centuries, the treasure grew in splendor and size; its 1,224 pieces rank it with the four largest royal treasure chambers that survived the decline of Europe's dynasties--the Tower of London, the Kremlin, Dresden's Royal Palace and Albertinum, Vienna's Imperial Schatzkammer.

Before 1958, only a fraction of the Wittelsbach Schatzkammer's contents had been shown to the public, and then only in a cramped, subterranean vault. The Bavarian government decided to bring the treasure out of the dark, spent $250,000 in preparing new quarters in a wing of the family's sprawling Munich residence, which is a replica of Florence's Pitti Palace and a next-door neighbor to the rebuilt Nationaltheater (TIME, Dec. 6). Now--slowly, because it is not much publicized--the Schatzkammer is becoming one of the show attractions of Europe (see opposite page).

Painting in Gems. The Wittelsbach treasure represents some of the finest works of a moribund art in which precious stones, rather than paint, provided color, and malleable gold and silver, rather than marble, was shaped to the sculptor's concept of form. The Schatzkammer's most ostentatious piece, an equestrian statue of the knight St. George, has 2,291 diamonds, 406 rubies and 209 pearls--and an artistic value transcending them all. Almost unnoticed beneath its bright blanket of jewels, the horse's opal eye flashes balefully from a smooth, stylized head of chalcedony. The swoop of the knight's crystal blade pulls the composition together, drawing attention to the writhing dragon underfoot--a creature all the more monstrous for its emerald scales and egg-sized ruby warts.

In the first of the Schatzkammer's ten rooms stands a gaunt, Carolingian ciborium, or altar canopy, wrought in gold for King Arnulf of Carinthia about A.D. 890. The vitrines of other rooms continue the historical procession, running from Gothic goblets through High Renaissance amphorae etched with centaurs to a Napoleonic necessaire--an elaborate Empire traveling case designed for Bonaparte's second wife, Marie Louise. By way of exotica, the Munich Schatzkammer has a brace of bejeweled Ceylonese chests, Persian daggers and Turkish scimitars, Ming porcelains set in Renaissance gold frames, a Mexican stone mask embellished by a German goldsmith after it got to Munich.

Not for the Glitter. Guarded by bank-vault-type doors, electric-eye burglar alarms and "footmen" whose blue-and-silver waistcoats bulge with shoulder-holster Lugers, the new Schatzkam-mer operates with little fanfare. "Too much publicity," explains Director Hans Thoma, "might only attract some fool Rififi who might take a crack at the wealth. The public should come gradually, not because they are intrigued by the glitter, but because of the artistic pleasure it gives to see so much precious beauty assembled."

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