At the explicit wish of August the Strong, the walls in the State Bedroom were covered, not in red, but in green velvet. The colour had become fashionable for silk fabrics in the early 18th century, and not just in Saxony. The shade was called “verde de Saxe”, Saxon green.
The visual distinction between this room and the Audience Chamber was intentional. Unlike in Versailles, where the State Bedroom featured as the grandiose culmination of court ceremonial, here in Dresden, the room had the intimate quality of a cabinet, a small private chamber. Hardly anyone was allowed to enter – and only when expressly invited. During the wedding celebrations in 1719, bride and groom were received in here for a private audience with the royal couple. Members of the court waited outside. Afterwards, the bride accepted the credentials of the ladies-in-waiting in the Audience Chamber.
August the Strong had the State Bedroom furnished as sumptuously as the Audience Chamber. For example, magnificent gold brocade was applied to the wall hangings to create an architectural structure. The panels were known locally as “Apelsche Bande”, ...borders named after the man who made them, silk manufacturer Andreas Dietrich Apel. The king had almost all the textile furnishings woven at Apel’s Leipzig manufactory.
The model for this type of State Bedroom was the one belonging to Prince Eugene at his Winter Palace in Vienna. The walls there were also lined with green velvet and surrounded with embroidered borders. August the Strong added another accent of his own: for the first time, he had the wall coverings in a state room decorated with exotic Eastern plant and fan motifs.
