Tiefurt Mansion and Park
About This Site
Anna Amalia took this small house on the Ilm as her summer residence from 1781, and used it for exactly what a court is bad at: sociable, artistic, musical time away from court ceremony. Goethe, Herder, Wieland and Schiller were among the guests. Entry is free.
Away from the ceremonial, 1765–1807
The building started as a tenant's house — the present one dates from 1765[1] — which is the first clue to what it was for. She wanted somewhere the protocol did not reach, and she kept it until she died in 1807.[1] The rooms are named rather than numbered: the Goethe Room, the music room, the dining room, the fireplace room, the bedroom.[1] It is a house at the scale of a conversation, which is why it worked.
What is inside, 1788–1790
Sculptures and busts by the court sculptor Martin Gottlieb Klauer; porcelain from China, Meissen and Vienna; works commemorating her Italian journey of 1788 to 1790; and, in the cold kitchen, historic display dishes in porcelain, wax and papier-mâché.[1] That last is the sort of thing that survives nowhere else, and it tells you more about eighteenth-century hospitality than any of the portraits.
The park
Twenty-one hectares of gently sloping meadow and tree groups along the Ilm, with monuments through it — the Temple of the Muses, the Virgil's Tomb, memorial stones and plaques.[1] It is a landscape arranged to be walked while talking, and it is free, open Tuesday to Sunday in the season and shut for the winter.[1]
Questions visitors ask
- What was Tiefurt used for?
- Anna Amalia's summer residence from 1781, kept until her death in 1807, for sociable, artistic and musical time away from court ceremony — everything a court is bad at.[1]
- Who visited?
- Goethe, Herder, Wieland and Schiller were among the guests. One of the named rooms is the Goethe Room.[1]
- What's inside?
- Sculptures and busts by the court sculptor Martin Gottlieb Klauer, porcelain from China, Meissen and Vienna, works commemorating Anna Amalia's Italian journey of 1788–1790, and — in the cold kitchen — historic display dishes in porcelain, wax and papier-mâché.[1]
- Is entry free, and when is it open?
- Yes, free. Tuesday to Sunday, 11:00–17:00, closed in winter — the park itself is 21 hectares of meadow and monuments along the Ilm.[1]
Connected Historical Figures
duchess • regent • patron • composer
Her summer residence from 1781 until her death in 1807, kept for sociability away from court ceremony.
writer • statesman • naturalist
Among the guests she received here; one of the rooms is named for him.
writer • poet • translator
Among the guests the house names as received here.
Sources (1)
- Schloss und Park Tiefurt — Klassik Stiftung Weimar, retrieved 29 August 2026
Visit Information
Free
Tue–Sun 11:00–17:00; closed in winter
Hauptstraße 14, 99425 Weimar-Tiefurt
50.9942, 11.3637
Events held here
Events
One day in June
Tiefurt is named as house and park together — Anna Amalia's summer retreat and the grounds her circle walked in.
One day in early October
The walks circle the village the mansion and its park stand in, which is what makes a walking day here more than exercise.
In Weimar's history
Historical periods
The period at its most private: a small house, a short guest list and no protocol.
For roughly sixty years a duchy of a few thousand people held the centre of German literature, because its ruler kept inviting writers to live there and then gave them jobs. That is the whole mechanism, and it ran from Goethe's arrival in 1775 to his death in 1832.
In Weimar's history
Twice in three years the World Heritage Committee put Weimar on its list: the Bauhaus buildings on 7 December 1996, and the eleven monuments of Classical Weimar on 2 December 1998.
Palace and park form one of the eleven monuments of Classical Weimar since 1998.