Prince Franz Josef I von Liechtenstein
1726–1781
Alexander Roslin (1718–1793), Portrait of Prince Franz Josef I von Liechtenstein (1726–1781), 1778
Predecessor
Prince Joseph Wenzel I von Liechtenstein
Successor
Prince Alois I von LiechtensteinPrince Franz Josef I von Liechtenstein successfully increased the family assets in 1772 with the inheritance of Duchess Maria Theresia of Savoy, in her turn heiress to an important part of the fortune of Prince Johann Adam Andreas I. In transforming the Baroque garden in the Rossau into a landscape garden he started a trend to which his two sons would also devote their energies.
The son of Prince Emanuel (1700–1771) and his wife Maria Antonia, née von Dietrichstein-Weichselstädt (1706–1777), Franz Josef I was born in Milan on 19 November 1726. He married Countess Maria Leopoldine von Sternberg (1723–1809) on 6 July 1750. The couple had eight children, including Franz Josef’s successors Alois I (1759–1805) and Johann I (1760–1836). Franz Josef I died at Metz on 18 August 1781.
Franz Josef I was strongly supported and encouraged by his uncle, Prince Joseph Wenzel I. At the age of twenty, he fought by his uncle’s side in the battle of Piacenza, which ended in victory for the Austrian forces. In 1760 he accompanied the prince to Parma to escort Princess Isabella to Vienna as the bride of Archduke Joseph. After becoming head of the family in 1772, he devoted himself to the administration of his extensive estates, which had been significantly enlarged through the legacy of Duchess Maria Theresia of Savoy, one of Prince Johann Adam Andreas I’s (1657–1712) daughters and his sole heir.
THE REORGANIZATION AND CATALOGUING OF THE PRINCELY GALLERY
Always eclipsed by the achievements of his predecessor and by those of his son, Prince Alois I, little is known of what Franz Josef I accomplished in the field of the arts or what priorities he set for the Collections. In the Reigning Prince’s residence on Bankgasse, today the Liechtenstein City Palace, he had the first piano nobile (on the first floor) completely renovated. Shortly before his accession he had had an apartment appropriate to his rank as son and heir to the Reigning Prince furnished at great expense, and modifications made to the Baroque main stairway. The coexistence of the gallery in the residence of the Reigning Prince on Bankgasse, which had been installed there since the time of Johann Adam Andreas I, and the collections in the palace on Herrengasse, was preserved for a time during his reign. However, pictures were regularly transferred to Bankgasse, eventually making it necessary to revise the catalogue by Vincenzio Fanti (1719–1776) that had been initiated by Prince Joseph Wenzel I and issued in 1767, and publish a new edition in 1780.
In terms of its structure, the gallery catalogue compiled by gallery inspector Johann Dallinger von Dalling resembles modern-day catalogues.
Prince Franz Josef I extended the exhibition rooms in the Bankgasse palace by a further gallery into which he transferred the nineteen paintings of the “Diana” cycle by Marcantonio Franceschini, which until then had hung in the Garden Palace in the Rossau. The re-cataloguing of the gallery was taken on by the gallery inspector Johann Dallinger von Dalling, who had been in his post since 1776. The catalogue was translated into French – the only language in which it ever appeared – by the prince’s librarian Abbé Valentin Lucchini from Königgrätz (Hradec Králové), and published by Trattner in Vienna. In terms of its structure, Dallinger’s compilation resembled modern-day catalogues. Information about the support – often helpful in identifying a work – is followed by a description of the object. Dallinger marked with an asterisk the 183 pictures that Prince Franz Josef I had had hung in the gallery in the Reigning Prince’s residence.
COMMISSIONS FROM PAINTERS AND SILVERSMITHS
It is very likely that Prince Franz Josef I was also responsible for the acquisition of large amounts of porcelain from China and Japan which was subsequently mounted in various ways by the Viennese silversmith Ignaz Joseph Würth.
Like his predecessor, Prince Franz Josef I had his portrait painted not by an unknown artist but by Alexander Roslin (1718–1793), one of the best in his field. Another important commission was given for eight family portraits created by the Swiss painter Friedrich Oelenhainz (1745–1804) for the ancestral gallery at Schloss Eisgrub (Lednice) in 1776. The garden landscapes and neoclassical structures that appear in the background of these likenesses reflect the tension between the conflicting priorities of tradition and the new in which the prince lived and his children were growing up.
It is very likely that Prince Franz Josef I was also responsible for the acquisition of large amounts of porcelain from China and Japan which was subsequently fitted with various kinds of metal mounts by the Viennese silversmith Ignaz Joseph Würth (1742–1792). Some of these mounts surpass what was being produced by the great masters of gold and silversmithery in Paris at the same time.
THE IDEA OF THE LANDSCAPE GARDEN
As far back as 1773 the prince had taken a decision of far-reaching consequences, initiating the first sales of the Baroque sculptures by Giovanni Giuliani (1664–1744) from the garden of the palace in the extra-mural Viennese suburb of Rossau. Discarding the concept of the formal Baroque garden, the prince had the park transformed into an English landscape garden. In this he was probably influenced by a close friend of the family, Count Moritz Lacy, who also set about turning his garden in Neuwaldegg near Vienna into a landscape park from 1776.
With this, Prince Franz Josef I spearheaded a development in Vienna that was successfully continued by his sons Prince Alois I and Prince Johann I at the turn of the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, leading to the creation of the largest landscape garden of the time in Central Europe at Eisgrub (Lednice) and Feldsberg (Valtice).
Discarding the concept of the formal Baroque garden, the prince had the park at the Liechtenstein Garden Palace transformed into an English landscape garden.
Franz Josef I was also responsible for substantial remodelling projects at his stately rural seats at Eisgrub and Feldsberg. The architect he employed for this work, as previously in the palace on Bankgasse, was the Frenchman Isidore Canevale (1730–1786), who was highly regarded at the Viennese court and had carried out major projects for it, including the Old University Building and the Josephinum. Canevale is an example of the dominance of French taste in Vienna at this time. It was not until the following generation that Austrian forces were to gain the upper hand. Whereas only minor alterations were carried out at Feldsberg, the palace at Eisgrub was extended by a storey and completely remodelled. Its appearance prior to its transformation in Gothic Revival style was recorded in a watercolour by Rudolf von Alt (1812–1905).
