Noble guests were received in the Yellow Room. Like almost all the rooms in the house it is painted in bold colours, after which the family named the rooms.

This is where Goethe’s mother kept all the gifts and memorabilia she received from Weimar. In 1775 – at the age of 26 and already a famous author – Goethe accepted an offer from Duke Carl August of Saxe-Weimar to work at the court in Weimar. Among the mementoes in the ‘Weimar room’, as Goethe’s mother referred to it, are the portrait of her son and the full-length silhouettes of Duchess Anna Amalia, Duke Carl August, and Goethe. Beside the entry door can be seen a portrait of Duchess Anna Amalia of Saxe-Weimar, Duke Carl August’s mother, who was also once a guest at the house on Großen Hirschgraben.

And when my loneliness and all the bad people around me become a burden … I want to go to this dear room, first to recall that the best of all princesses walked up and down in it, and then to devoutly examine all my things, one after the other. My imagination will quickly take me to Weimar, and all the pressure on me – my bad mood, my boredom, whatever these evil spirits are called – will rapidly depart.

Letter from Catharina Elisabeth Goethe to Herzogin Anna Amalia on 17 August, 1778