Page - 32 - in Die Repräsentation der Habsburg-Lothringischen Dynastie in Musik, visuellen Medien und Architektur - 1618–1918

32 Sektion I: Themen und Medien der Repräsentation can be extended to include discussions of nearly all material entities, toward a total materiality. In this respect, material culture approaches Prown’s terminology as pre- sented earlier. This room, like the snuffbox we just discussed, is itself a material entity and it too holds strains of meaning in its complex materiality, especially, I shall em- phasize, in its choice of medium. One quality of this room’s design fascinates above all else: the juxtaposition of portraits of European monarchs with Chinese lacquered wood panels. This com- bination of European and Asian elements is typical in eighteenth-century art, but is somewhat special here in that this is a room devoted to celebrating a European monarchic family. Perpetually fascinating as well is that in this room devoted to the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, very little of its pictorial iconography evokes the terri- tory where it stands, Austria, or for that matter any of the territories that formed the Empire: no references to Bohemia, Moravia, Hungary, Slovenia, nor any other imperial domain appear in the room. Instead, we find evocations of more distant places, Rome and East Asia specifically. Why would a room designed to celebrate the dynastic line include so few references to territories under their authority? Part Figure 3: Vieux-Laque-Room, Schloss Schönbrunn, after 1765.