Page - 27 - in Die Repräsentation der Habsburg-Lothringischen Dynastie in Musik, visuellen Medien und Architektur - 1618–1918

Interdisciplinary Material Culture Studies and the Problem of Habsburg-Lorraine Representation 27 These methodological musings may seem far indeed from the dynasty of Habs- burg-Lorraine, but actually they are not. For if anthropological and art-historical perspectives on materiality can enliven modern subjects, there is no reason why they cannot also be applied to cultural products from the early modern era. To see how materiality might work there, let us look at a beautiful object whose function and meanings are clearly related to the Habsburg-Lorraine dynastic mission: the so-called Prunktabatière des Fürsten Kaunitz (Fig. 1). Although the name ‘Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg’ evokes the celebrated court chancellor under Empress Maria The- resa and Emperor Joseph II, this snuffbox actually came into his possession rather late in its history. It was commissioned in 1773 as a present to Maria Theresa’s brother-in- law Charles Alexander of Lorraine, co-governor of the Austrian Netherlands, brother of her husband and husband of her sister Maria Anna.13 Fashioned of gilded and cloisonnéed metal by the court jeweler Franz von Mack, the box displays on its sur- faces thirteen diamond-encrusted family portraits painted by the court miniaturist Antonio Bencini. Across a career lasting several decades, Bencini produced hundreds Figure 1: Franz von Mack and Antonio Bencini, Snuffbox of Prince Kaunitz, 1773.