A prince among art collections

The Garden Palace, in Vienna, is now home to the 1,600 artworks collected by the princes of Liechtenstein, writes Marese Murphy.

With more than 1,600 works of art at their disposal, the princes of Liechtenstein have long been well equipped for cultural philanthropy. The vast new Liechtenstein Museum, opened recently in Vienna, is a prime example of their enlightened approach, which dates back to l807, when the Liechtensteins were the first family in the city to open their private art galleries to the public. This benign initiative flourished for 130 years, until the second World War put a spanner in the works. The galleries were obliged to close in l938, and their contents were taken to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein, for safekeeping.

The Liechtensteins were resilient, however: despite the loss of their estates in Moravia and, worse still, their reluctant sale of art treasures to counter post-war economic difficulties, the principality's astute banking policy soon revived their fortunes.

Today their agents travel the world, buying back items from the collections when they come on the market, housing them with new acquisitions in the family's Garden Palace, in Vienna, which has been restored at a cost of €23 million.

Now surrounded by suburbs, the palace once served as a summer retreat outside the gates of Vienna. Its noble proportions and painted ceilings make it an appropriate setting for the array of old masters. It also provides ample space for temporary exhibitions.

The first of these, marking the opening of the museum, is devoted to an incongruous pairing of neoclassicism and the Biedermeier period. There is startling contrast between the austere grandeur of the former, especially Giovanni Pannini's capriccio version of the Pantheon, in Rome, and the calculated cosiness of the Biedermeier style. The latter is at its most intimate in Friedrich von Amerling's studies of Liechtenstein children and at its most seductive in the delicate skin tones of the anonymous beauty who sat for his Lost In Dreams.

An artistic halfway house is Johann Peter Krafft's grisly vision of the battlefield at Aspern, where Napoleon suffered his first defeat. Archduke Karl von Liechtenstein and the reigning prince of the household sit proudly on their chargers, impervious to the carnage around them, their elegant white uniforms unspoiled by any stain of war.

This exhibition closes in November to make way for the December opening of a tribute to Rubens - overkill, perhaps, as the Flemish master is already strongly in evidence in the permanent collection.

It is a far cry from the still, solemn detail and Byzantine use of gold lavished on early Italian panel paintings, or from the exquisite modelling of a small bronze by Mantegna, to the flamboyant energy of Rubens.

His work at the museum is dominated by the great Decius Mus cartoon cycle, illustrating Livy's account of the Roman consul's life with vigorous figures and vivid flesh tints. The latter, however, are expressed more subtly in the painter's portraits of his immediate family and most sensuously in his famous study of Venus, in which the foreground is occupied by her curvaceous back, her somewhat vacuous gaze reflected in a mirror held by a servant.

"Art must not leave us indifferent," says Dr Johann Kraftner, the Liechtenstein Museum's enthusiastic director. "It will be up to each visitor and their mood whether they will be overcome by a cold shudder or by sheer pleasure when faced with an artwork." And he is right. The scale and diversity of the works acquired over centuries by the Liechtensteins are nothing short of overwhelming.

The princely passion for collecting got under way seriously with the appointment of Karl I to the court of Rudolf II in Prague early in the l7th century, and it has hardly faltered since, with successive generations of the family buying and commissioning works of art. A substantial collection was in place by l738, when Prince Joseph Wenzel decided to embellish the Liechtenstein laurels with an order for a gilded rococo carriage for his arrival in Paris as ambassador to Louis XV.

Francesco Solimena's portrait of him shows a young man with pride - even arrogance - in every lineament of his bearing, and it comes as no surprise that throughout his life he insisted on public acclaim and recognition of his lofty standing.

The numerous portraits of the permanent exhibition are generally solemn, although this is not true of the gentle treatment accorded to Frederick the Wise of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The old man's kind, jowly face is wholly unlike the frowning Count of Haag in Hans Mielich's colourful full-length study.

That worthy had every reason to feel disgruntled when, in l555, he travelled to Ferrara, in northern Italy, to marry one of the ducal d'Este family. His chagrin on discovering that his mother-in-law had locked her daughter in a convent is understandable, and you can only have sympathy for him as, evading thugs set on him by his redoubtable in-law, he made his way home with a leopard on a lead instead of a bride on his arm.

After this grotesque incident there is welcome relief in the irresistible charm of the Portrait Of An Unknown Man by Frans Hals. A handsome face that has clearly enjoyed life's pleasures is animated by dark eyes that smile roguishly, though with a hint of ruefulness in anticipation of the price to be exacted for former indulgence. It is a remarkable exercise in representing facial expression, with the artist's free brushwork and gift for characterisation confirming his stature as the finest portrait painter of his time, and perhaps of any.

There is cheerful matter, too, in the final gallery of the museum. Largely given over to still lifes and landscapes of the Dutch school, it also includes some jolly paintings of musicians, plus others of peasants feasting, carousing and generally roistering. By far the most important work in this section is the imaginative extravagance of Landscape With The Young Tobias by Jan Bruegel.

In the foreground a group of merrymakers gathers with dogs and pigs while behind them, in a sunny clearing, grander folk ride on horseback. Scarcely visible in the distance, the young Tobias strives assiduously to follow Archangel Raphael's advice by hauling a fish from the river in the hope of curing his father's blindness. It is an intensely complicated composition, deriving three-dimensional character from the expert colouring of luxuriant forest foliage, a broad, winding river and remote mountain peaks in the background.

You'll need a lot of stamina to tackle it, but the Liechtenstein Museum is worth every ounce of effort.

The Liechtenstein Museum is open every day except Tuesday. Austrian Airlines flies between Dublin and Vienna four times a week