Page - 33 - 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 33 of the answer lies in its history. The room reached its current appearance in the early 1770s. Formerly Emperor Franz Stephan’s Retirade or private study, it was originally associated with him as the innermost space in his official state apartment, adjoining as it does the shared imperial bedroom and from there leading to Maria Theresa’s study, the breakfast room, and onward into her apartment.21 After Franz’s sudden death in 1765, the room initially remained little changed until it was transformed into a memorial to the deceased Emperor a few years later. It also was quickly ab- sorbed into a series of competing interests at court regarding the future of Habsburg art patronage. Under Kaunitz’s supervision, three portraits were commissioned, two from Pompeo Batoni (the ones representing Joseph II and Leopold of Tuscany, and the posthumous portrait of Emperor Franz) and a further one from the Austrian art representative in Rome, Anton von Maron. This third picture represents Leopold’s bride Maria Ludovica and his eldest children, and in including it, something like the representation of dynastic efflorescence conveyed in the Prunktabatière is created here architecturally. But when one looks more closely at these paintings, it becomes apparent that all in one manner or another refer fundamentally to Maria Theresa. She appears in the room obliquely and subtly, but she is ever present. In Maron’s Figure 4: Vieux-Laque-Room, Schloss Schönbrunn, after 1765, details at the north-east corner.