Goethe's house on the Frauenplan at Weimar [antikvár]

Goethe and the house on the FrauenplanGoethe resided in the house on the Frauenplan from 1782 to 1789 and from 1792 to 1832, the year of his death, i. e. almost half a century. It was erected " as an ornament to the town" according to the stone inscription above the portal by the proprietor and first inhabitant, the princely court's commissioner, cropper, hosier and town lieutenant Georg Kaspar Helmershausen in 1709. The generously spaced, baroque-style partrician's house, built by master-builder Muetzel, from the beginning was a symbol of the growing civil self-confidence at the time of feudal absolutism.Goethe, who up to then had mostly lived in the gardenhouse on the Stern, which was given to him for a present by Duke Carl August in 1776, settled in the house on the Frauenplan as tenant in early summer 1782. His position as minister and confidant of the duke and the various works he was occupied with during his first decade at Weimar required a roomy residence in town. The lease dated April 19th, 1782, obliged Goethe to pay a quarter's rent of 36 thaler and also "to defray all minor repairs during the term of the lease and also the whitewashing of the house and the wages for the chimneysweep" as had been done by the "preceding tenants", too. The "rented quarters" was, as stated in the lease, "completely whitewashed and well repaired on entering". A letter dated June 2nd, 1782, addressed to Charlotte von Stein, begins with the words: "For the first time I am writing from the new quarters ". In Goethe's diary is mentioned of the same day: "moved into town for the first time, slept in this house". For the time being, however, he had to share the house with the proprietor's grandson, the ducal Saxon