Fürstenhaus Herrenhausen-Museum

The Fürstenhaus in Hannover-Herrenhausen is a former palace built in 1721 for Louise von Delitz, one of King George I’s daughters. The timber-framed building stands on the Alte Herrenhäuser Straße, its yellow-rendered façade added in the 1860s by architect Georg Heinrich Schuster. The house survived wartime bombing and later served as a museum from 1955 to 2011. It now belongs to the Welf family and has been the home of Prince Ernst August since 2017.

Inside, visitors would have found ten grand rooms furnished with 17th- and 18th-century pieces. Portraits of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg line the walls alongside landscapes painted around 1750. The vestibule ceiling holds a 1721 fresco of Juno on clouds with a peacock and cherub. Highlights included the Herzberger hunting tapestry depicting four brothers and a 17th-century games room with carved furniture.

The building sits within a U-shaped courtyard once laid out as a small Baroque garden. The garden was later cut off by a road and partly replaced by the headquarters of the Evangelical Church in Germany. Though closed to the public, the Fürstenhaus remains a rare survivor of Hanover’s royal past, its interiors still echoing the tastes of the Welf dynasty.