With its unique combination of architecture and garden design, the palace and park complex of Nymphenburg is one of the best examples in Europe of a synthesis of the arts. In 1664, following the birth of the heir to the throne, Max Emanuel, Elector Ferdinand Maria of Bavaria and his wife Henriette Adelaide of Savoy commissioned the architect Agostino Barelli to build Nymphenburg Palace. Elector Max Emanuel had the complex extended from 1701 with side galleries and residential pavilions designed by Henrico Zuccalli.

From 1715, Joseph Effner created the four-winged complexes on each side and modernized the façade of the central building in the French style: the country seat of Max Emanuel’s parents was now an extensive summer residence of absolutist proportions. His successor, Elector Karl Albrecht, extended Nymphenburg with the crescent on the city side.

Nymphenburg Palace was extremely popular with the Bavarian rulers as a summer residence. Numerous rulers from the Wittelsbach dynasty added to the interior. The decoration of the main palace thus represents a variety of styles ranging from Baroque and Rococo to Neoclassicism.This long tradition is reflected in the Baroque ceiling paintings from the epoch of the palace’s founder, the apartments decorated with exquisite paintings and furniture and the galleries with views of Bavarian palaces and hunting lodges from the time of Elector Max Emanuel.

A further highlight is the light-filled Great Hall with its lively ceiling fresco and the stucco ornamentation by Johann Baptist Zimmermann in the Rococo style. The era of the Bavarian kings is represented by the residential rooms of the queen with their authentic furnishing in the court Empire style, which include the room in which King Ludwig II was born. Among the attractions of Nymphenburg is the famous Gallery of Beauties of King Ludwig I of Bavaria, for which Joseph Stieler painted 36 beautiful women from all sections of society.