Liselund

Liselund is an 18th-century aesthetically landscaped park, complete with several exotic buildings and monuments. Located close to Møns Klint on the north-eastern corner of the Danish island of Møn, it is deemed to be one of the finest examples in Scandinavia of Romantic English gardening. The park was created in the 1790s by French nobleman Antoine de Bosc de la Calmette for his wife Elisabeth, commonly known as Lisa. Liselund, roughly translated, means Lise's grove.

Antoine de Bosc de la Calmette was a Hugenot whose family had been forced to leave France for Holland. His father was a diplomat who after terms in Switzerland and Portugal, finally arrived in Denmark where, in 1776, the family was naturalised and recognised as Danish nobility.

In January 1777, he married Catharina Elisabeth Iselin, the daughter of the Swiss baron Reinhard Iselin who had also emigrated to Denmark. In 1783, Antoine was appointed prefect of Møn. The same year, he bought six hectares of land on the eastern coast of the island in the parish of Magleby.

He and his wife, who travelled widely, had become interested in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's philosophy of naturalism in the Age of Enlightenment. As a result, Antoine designed the park in the Romantic spirit of the time as a loving gift for his wife. It was intended as a retreat where the family could spend a few days or weeks at a time, often with invited guests, away from the hardships of their working lives at Marienborg on the other side of the island.

Antoine and Lisa were not able to enjoy the park for very long. He died in 1803 and his wife in 1805. Their son, Charles, then took over Liselund but, after his death in 1821, it was sold to a friend, Frederik Raben-Levetzau-Huitfeldt, who died in 1828, and his wife, Emerentia Rosenkrantz-Huitfeldt, who died in 1843. The estate was then inherited by her nephew, Baron Gottlob Rosenkranz until 1884 when it was bought by his son Baron Fritz Rosenkranz. In 1936, it was transferred to his eldest son, Baron Erik Rosenkranz, then to Erik's brother, Niels, in 1956. In 1973, it was transferred to Baron Niels Henrik Rosenkranz until, owing to the increasing costs of maintaining the estate, the summer manor and park became the property of the Danish State to be administered by the National Museum of Denmark.

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Wikipedia