Oberschleissheim - New Schleißheim Palace - Across the Curves of the Baroque Garden

New Schleißheim Palace seen from an angled garden perspective, with sweeping gravel paths, colourful flower borders and formal lawns framing its magnificent Baroque façade.

New Schleißheim Palace in Oberschleissheim, Bavaria, is the monumental centrepiece of the Schleißheim Palace complex and one of the most impressive Baroque residences created for the Wittelsbach dynasty. This photograph presents the palace from an oblique viewpoint across its formal court garden, where curving gravel paths, manicured lawns, colourful flower borders and a glimpse of a water basin create a layered foreground leading toward the long, richly articulated façade. Elector Max Emanuel commissioned the New Palace as part of an ambitious plan for a grand residential complex. The shell was constructed between 1701 and 1704 according to plans by court architect Henrico Zuccalli, but work was interrupted following Max Emanuel’s military defeats and exile during the War of the Spanish Succession. After his return to Bavaria, construction resumed, and from 1719 the Paris-trained Joseph Effner designed the façade and interiors in the fashionable French late-Baroque style. The New Palace was completed around 1726, although only the main wing of the originally planned four-wing complex was ultimately realised. Together with the historic court garden, the palace forms one of Bavaria’s outstanding ensembles of Baroque architecture and landscape design.