SPECIAL EXHIBITION: FREE AND UNFREE

Wild luxury and constricting chains. Dreams of reforms and the struggle for daily bread. Powerful lords, freed peasants and enslaved people. Bright ideas – and dark shadow sides. Free and unfree lived side by side in 1700th century Denmark.

At the end of the 1700th century, Christian Reventlow, one of Lolland's – and Denmark's – largest landowners, was part of the country's powerful and wealthy elite. Reventlow and his young, rich, noble friends sat in the country's most important political positions and lived a life in the luxurious top of society. But at the same time, they dreamed of a better and freer society for everyone and were behind reforms such as the ban on the slave trade and the abolition of the peasants' stave ties. The men of power, and the well-read and politically engaged women in their circle, created changes and improvements that we have since celebrated in Danish history.

But the reforms came with strong downsides. Visit the Reventlow-Museet Pederstrup and step into the living rooms of the Reventlow couple, where you can meet both the high-flying ideas and the real people who were affected by the reforms - for better or for worse! From Reventlow's noble circle of friends to poor peasants who lived on the verge of starvation, to the enslaved Hans Jonathan, who, unlike most others, succeeded in breaking the chains and running away.