"Madame Royale" Historical Society, February 2010
Visualising Castle Eishausen - The virtual reconstruction of the domicile of the Dark Count and the Dark Countess
Exactly
200 years after the "Dark Count" and the "Dark Countess"
moved into Castle Eishausen, the building has been reconstructed in a project of
the "Madame Royale" Historical Society and the Coburg University of
Applied Sciences. For the first time, a digital 3D-model allows a view inside
the castle which was pulled down in 1874. A visualisation with movies, pictures
and diagrams gives an idea of the domicile of the strange pair. The
visualisation is available on DVD now.
200 years ago, the Castle Eishausen near the southern Thuringian town of Hildburghausen became the domicile of a strange pair. On September 30th, 1810, a rich gentleman named Vavel de Versay (actually Leonardus Cornelius van der Valck) and an unknown lady moved to the remote manor house to live a separate life there, isolated from the public. They only left the castle to drive by carriage or to go for a walk near the building. The lady was always seen with green glasses or a veil and so she got the name "Dark Countess".
The
reason for the strange life of the pair is still unknown; the identity of the
lady, too. Some historians believe she was the Bourbon princess "Madame
Royale", the eldest daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France.
Others suspect she was a commoner called Sophie(a) Botta from Westphalia. But
whomever the lady was, her isolated life over nearly 30 years at Castle
Eishausen marks the location as a famous historical site. The demolition of the
building in 1874 was a big loss for the village and researchers who deal with
the story of her life.
To revive the memory of the castle, two models were built by the local heritage society "Heimatverein Eishausen" in recent years. These models give a pretty good view of the outside of the building. But up until now, there were no illustrations of the inside.
The suggestion to reconstruct the exterior and interior of the castle in a digital visualisation came from the Dutch historian Dr. Mark de Lannoy in 2005. But the project did not actually begin until the start of 2009 when the "Madame Royale" Historical Society and the Coburg University of Applied Sciences took it on together.
At
first, Bernd Hoffmann from the university created two-dimensional floor plans of
the building based on historical drawings, pictures and written descriptions.
Then he created a 3D-model by using special computer software. The model
includes all architectural details of the building like the front elevation,
windows and roof, as well as furniture like cupboards, beds, tables and chairs.
The complete 3D-model allows a look at the castle from every point of view.
The result of the visualisation was published on DVD by the "Madame Royale" Historical Society. With movies, realistic pictures and diagrams, the user can make a virtual walkthrough of the now vanished Castle Eishausen and get an idea of the domicile of the "Dark Count" and the "Dark Countess". The DVD is completed by a booklet (20 pages, German) with information about the history and the reconstruction of the castle.
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Visualisierung des Schlosses Eishausen |
The DVD is available at the
"Buchhandlung am Markt" (
www.Buchhandlung-Hildburghausen.de),
the "Schubert'schen
Buchhandlung" Coburg or at the "Heimatverein Eishausen e.V.".
© "Madame Royale" Historical Society - last update: 25/02/2010
