Count Adam Gottlob von Moltke (10 November 1710 – 25 September 1792)[1] was a German-born Danish courtier, politician and diplomat who was a favourite of Frederick V of Denmark-Norway.

Especially notable is Moltke's attitude towards the two distinguished statesmen who played the leading parts during the reign of Frederick, Johan Sigismund Schulin and The Elder Bernstorff.

He looked askance at all projects for the emancipation of the serfs, but, as one of the largest landowners of Denmark, he did service to agriculture by lightening the burdens of the countrymen and introducing technical and scientific improvements, which also increased production.

Moltke then arranged a new marriage for the king to Duchess Juliana Maria of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, daughter of Ferdinand Albert II, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and sister-in-law to Frederick the Great of Prussia.

As Christian VII's reign was marked by mental illness,[5][6] he was heavily influenced by his personal physician Johann Friedrich Struensee.

[8] In addition, he instituted criminalisation and punishment of bribery, university reforms, assignment of farmland to peasants, and re-organization and reduction of the army[9] After losing support of the people, partially as a result of his abolition of censorship of the press,[8] Struensee was deposed by a coup in 1772, after which the country was ruled by the King's stepmother, Juliane Marie of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, his half-brother Frederick and the Danish politician Ove Høegh-Guldberg.

While the development was the idea of Danish Ambassador Plenipotentiary in Paris, Johann Hartwig Ernst, Count von Bernstorff, Moltke, along with the royal architect, Nicolai Eigtved, spearheaded the construction.

[14] The project consisted of four identical mansions, built to house four distinguished families of nobility from the royal circles, placed around an octagonal square.

It's Great Hall (Riddersalen) featured woodcarvings (boiserie) by Louis August le Clerc, paintings by François Boucher and stucco by Giovanni Battista Fossati, and is acknowledged widely as perhaps the finest Danish Rococo interior.

[14] In 1753, Moltke, as Director for the Danish Asiatic Company, commissioned an equestrian statue of King Frederik V from French sculptor Jacques-Francois-Joseph Saly.