10

Ornate dummies

To heat the palace of Sanssouci with its cold floors to at least tolerable temperatures during winter, servants had to provide the fire places with logs. When they stoked the fire, they did not have to reach into a simple box. The pieces of wood were carefully piled in a fire wood commode; its drawers, however, were only imitations.
When the German emperors took up residence in the New Palace modernity moved in with them in the shape of a central heating. Unfortunately, the amount of fuel was enormous. Three tons of black coal, two hectolitres of coke and seven cubic metres of alder wood were burned in a single day when the outdoor temperatures fell to 0 °C.