Don’t ask me what made me bring pastels on vacation to Germany with me (one guess how Germans reacted to the artist dragging the billowing chalk dust cloud wherever she went). This is a sketch i made in almost complete darkness in another one of Ludwig II’s lairs, this time of the golden boat floating in the pond of his artificial underground “opera grotto”. Apparently he liked to float in the boat while Wagner operas were being performed on the little stage surrounded by papermaché stalachtites. It was also one of the first indoor uses of electricity in the 1870ies or so. Needless to mention this part of Alpine castle Linderhof did not quite match the rest of the 19th Century Bavarian Baroque décor.
