| Brühl | |
| Caption: | Arms of the Counts of Brühl |
| Distinctions: | Imperial Count of the Holy Roman Empire |
| Origin: | Saxony, Holy Roman Empire |
| Region: | Germany, United States, Sweden, Denmark, France, United Kingdom |
The Brühl family (de Brüel, von Brühl) is an old German noble family from Saxony-Thuringia, with their ancestral seat in Gangloffsömmern in Thuringia. Branches of the family still exist today.
Heinrich von Brühl, who indirectly controlled Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth during the 18th century, was a powerful statesman in the Holy Roman Empire.[1]
One of the most important branches of the Brühl family uses the spelling Brüel or Bryll and mainly resides in Denmark, Sweden, Poland, and United States.
Not much is known about the family's early history. They are first mentioned in 1344, with "Heinrich aus dem Brühl". He is named as a ministerialis of the Counts of Hohnstein. The name Heinrich was later often given to sons of the family.
Heinrich von Brühl (died 1446) owned the manor of Wenigen-Tennstedt and is first mentioned in records in 1424. The familial line starts with him. His descendant Heinrich von Brühl acquired a manor at Gangloffsömmern in 1470, which became the family seat.
In 1464, the manor of Pakosław (Greater Poland) was bought by one Johannes Brühl (senior), whose son Johannes Brühl (junior) left Poland for Saxony in 1496 with his wife Balice Banarowna, heiress of Oświęcim, accompanying the king's daughter, Barbara Jagiellon (later the wife of George, Duke of Saxony). The name Brühl-Oswiecino was still in use into the 18th century.
At the end of the 17th century, the family seat was owned by the Oberhofmarschall and Wirklicher Geheimer Rat Hans Moritz von Brühl. His son was the Heinrich von Brühl (1700–1763). From 1719, he served the court of the Elector of Saxony, and he progressed quickly through the favour of Augustus II the Strong. For almost two decades, Brühl was the most powerful man in the Electorate; as prime minister, he indirectly controlled Saxony and the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. His fiscal policy, unchecked by a weak ruler, almost led Saxony to financial disaster, but it made Brühl extremely wealthy. Like his three older brothers a year later, Heinrich von Brühl was made an Imperial Count in 1737.
The two youngest of the four brothers founded two lines, the older Saxonian line, starting with the Saxonian Landeshauptmann Friedrich Wilhelm von Brühl, and a younger Saxonian-Prussian line, starting with prime minister Heinrich von Brühl. The older line retained possession of Gangloffsömmern, Forst, and Seifersdorf. An offshoot started to use the name Brühl-Renard in 1909, but it died out in the male line in 1923. The family today has many branches.
Hans Moritz von Brühl (1736–1809) was the son of F. W. Graf von Brühl of Martinskirchen, who died in 1760, and nephew of Heinrich von Brühl. Born at Wiederau in the Electorate of Saxony, he studied at Leipzig and there formed a close friendship with Christian Gellert, who corresponded with him for some years. At Paris in 1755, Brühl, then in his nineteenth year, took an active part in Saxon diplomacy, and he was summoned to Warsaw in 1759. He was named, through his uncle's influence, chamberlain and commandant in Thuringia, and in 1764 appointed ambassador extraordinary to the Court of St James's.
He loved astronomy and promoted its interests. Brühl helped determine, in 1785, the latitudes and longitudes of Brussels, Frankfurt, Dresden, and Paris. Brühl built (probably in 1787) a small observatory at his villa at Harefield and set up there, about 1794, a two-foot astronomical circle by Jesse Ramsden, one of the first instruments of the kind made in England. He was intimate with William Herschel, and transmitted news of discoveries abroad through Johann Elert Bode's Jahrbuch. He supported the advancement of chronometry, in the work of Thomas Mudge and Emery. He also gave attention to political economy, and made a tour through the remoter parts of England early in 1783 to investigate the state of trade and agriculture. "Count de Bruhl" was next to Philidor, Verdoni and George Atwood one of the greatest chess player of his time.[2]
He married, first, in 1767, Alicia Maria, dowager countess of Egremont, daughter of George Carpenter, 2nd Baron Carpenter, who died on 1 June 1794, leaving him a son and daughter; secondly, in 1796, Maria, daughter of General Christopher Chowne, who died in 1835. The family was thus joined with the British aristocracy and intellectual elite, and offspring went on to possess significant influence in the United Kingdom. For example, Lord Polwarth was Brühl's grandson.
Georg Wilhelm de Brüel (von Brühl) was sent to Denmark in the late 18th century to establish an operational plan of the forests in the stock houses Krenkerup on Lolland. Brüel was greatly successful, creating a close relationship with the Danish king, and started spelling his name "Brüel".[3]
The family accumulated remarkable wealth during the different reigns of their members, especially during the era of Heinrich von Brühl, whose fortune was sequestered but afterwards restored to the family. The inquiry showed that Brühl owed his immense fortune to the prodigality of the king rather than to unlawful means of accumulation.
The family's power was often beneficial to the arts and sciences. The family was a dedicated collector and protector of the arts. They owned a large gallery of pictures, which was bought by Empress Catherine II of Russia in 1768, and their library of 70,000 volumes was one of the biggest private libraries in the Holy Roman Empire.
Brühl's glories refers to the buildings and collections, created on behalf of Heinrich von Brühl, on the Brühl Terrace in Dresden. These include the Brühl Palace, the Brühl's library, the Brühl's Gallery, the Belvedere and the Brühl's garden. Brühl commissioned the enormous Swan Service of Meissen porcelain; he was the director of the factory.
Brühl's Terrace is known as the "Balcony of Europe", a name which was first thought up and used at the beginning of the 19th century and which since then has been used in all kinds of literature.
Numerous books and films has been made about the family and its members. "Saxony's shine and Prussia's Glory: Brühl the Great Career" and "Saxony's shine and Prussia's Glory: Brühl the War" (1985) was two parts of a six-part television film aired in Germany. Polish author Józef Ignacy Kraszewski immortalized the von Brühl family in two novels from the 1870s ("Count Brühl", "From the Seven Years' War").
Boroviczény, Aladár von. Graf Von Bruehl: Der Medici, Richelieu Und Rothschild Seiner Zeit. Zuerich, Amalthea-Verlag, 1930.