Successor
Prince Karl I von LiechtensteinA baron in his own right, Hartmann II von Liechtenstein was the father of Karl, Gundaker and Maximilian von Liechtenstein, who were each successively raised to the rank of hereditary prince. On his death Hartmann II left a small collection of paintings and 230 books.
Hartmann II was born in 1544 to Georg Hartmann I (1513–1562) and his wife Susanna von Liechtenstein. On 28 October 1568 he married Countess Anna Maria von Ortenburg (b. 1547, d. 16 December 1601). The couple had nine children, including Karl I, the first member of the family to be raised to the rank of prince.
A treasury inventory dating from the early seventeenth century mentioned by Gustav Wilhelm (1908–1995), a former director of the Collections, lists treasures that can be assigned to the ownership of Hartmann II von Liechtenstein. Mentioned alongside tapestries are paintings, including a series of ancestral portraits.
The most important of the portraits owned by Hartmann II is the “Portrait of Ladislaus von Fraunberg, Count zu Haag”,
His wife Anna Maria von Ortenburg, niece of Count Ladislaus von Haag, brought several likenesses of the Counts of Haag and Counts of Ortenburg with her into the marriage. The most important of these is the “Portrait of Ladislaus von Fraunberg, Count zu Haag (1505–1566)”. Ladislaus had himself portrayed with his pet leopard by Hans Mielich (1516–1573) in 1557, in front of a view of his snow-bedecked palace. The monumental painting clearly recalls Jacob Seisenegger’s (1505–1567) full-length portrait of Emperor Charles V from 1532. Ladislaus’s father Leonhard and his grandfather Sigmund von Fraunberg also had their portraits painted by renowned artists, the former by Hans Suess von Kulmbach (c. 1480–1522), the latter by Hans Holbein the Elder (c. 1465–1524).
WITNESSES OF TIMES PAST
The three likenesses are not only among the best examples of the German portraiture of their time but also serve as reminders of an individual’s fate and with him that of a whole dynasty. The unhappy story of Ladislaus von Fraunberg is particularly moving. In 1525, aged twenty, he took part in the battle of Pavia (24 February 1525) for Emperor Charles V. Afterwards, however, he changed sides, entering the service of King Francis I of France. As a punishment the emperor seized half of his earldom, which Ladislaus was forced to buy back for a large sum after his return in 1529. The count made a second marriage in 1555, to the niece of the Duke of Ferrara, Emilia Roverella de Piis et Carpi. However, the mother of the bride hid her daughter away in a convent, retaining her dowry into the bargain. Ladislaus von Fraunberg had to buy his way out of the marriage contract for a large sum of money.
The three likenesses are not only among the best examples of the German portraiture of their time but also serve as reminders of an individual’s fate and with him that of a whole dynasty.
Having returned home humiliated from Italy, in the summer of 1557 he sought the hand of Margarethe von Trenbach, whom he was unable to marry, however, because the pope was unwilling to dissolve his marriage to the Italian princess. A child he had from his liaison with Margarethe was therefore illegitimate and had no claim to the earldom. These repeated blows of fate sealed the extinction of his lineage.
TREASURES IN PARCHMENT
Hartmann II von Liechtenstein was a bibliophile. The Princely Library still preserves a number of his books that are of great interest not only for their contents but also their bindings. The richly tooled and partially gilded parchment bindings bearing Hartmann’s monogram (H.H.V.L.V.N. = Herr Hartmann von Liechtenstein von Nikolsburg) and the date 1577 or 1578, are testimony to the reverence in which he held his books. At that time books were extremely precious objects.
With these treasures Hartmann II laid the foundations of the collecting activity which his three sons Karl, Maximilian and Gundaker were to continue after his death.
It is difficult for us to appreciate the enormous value of this – in modern-day terms – modest number of volumes. The wide-ranging contents of the books in his possession attest to the broad nature of Hartmann II's interests.
With these treasures he laid the foundations of the collecting activity which his three sons Karl, Maximilian and Gundaker were to continue after his death at Eisgrub (Lednice) in October 1585. During the course of their political careers they were to attain the hereditary rank of prince and duke that continues in the family via the line of Gundaker (1580–1658) to the present day.