The Habsburg-Lorraine Household Treasure
The Household Treasure contains items from the daily life of the Habsburg monarchs. The collection is vast and only a few highlights are featured regularly.
- The Cradle of the King of Rome was commissioned by the city of Paris as a gift to Napoleon and his wife Empress Marie-Louise, on the birth of their son Napoleon II (it was built by Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1758–1813), Henri-Victor Roguier (1758-after 1830), Jean-Baptiste-Claude Odiot (1763–1850) and Pierre-Philippe Thomire (1751–1843). It was made in Paris in 1811. It is silver-gilt, and decorated with gold, mother-of-pearl, copper plates covered with velvet, silk and tulle with gold and silver embroidery, and signed on two of the feet: Odiot et Thomire and Thomire et Odiot. Angels hold a little baldachin over the head, and a bird sits at the foot. Bees, the symbol of the Bonaparte dynasty, decorate the sides. The cradle was more of horizontal throne with all its splendour, and a more practical cradle was also commissioned, which is in the Louvre today.
Other items include:
- Precious christening table clothes, robes, candles.
- Golden baptismal ewers and basins from Spain.
- An emerald Unguentarium commissioned by emperor Ferdinand II and produced in Prague in 1641 by Dionysio Miseroni. It is made out of a single piece of 2,680 carats (540 g) emerald, and enamelled with gold.
- Precious stones such as the Hyacinth "La Bella", and jewelry.
One notable item listed in the Household Treasure is:
- The Crown of István Bocskay. This Transylvanian prince sided with the Ottoman Turks during their wars with the Habsburg empire. As a sign of their gratitude, the Ottomans sent him a crown, probably a Persian production from the 17th century. After his death, it was brought to Vienna in 1609. It is made out of gold, studded with precious stones and pearls, and laid in with silk. As crowns were not in use in the Ottoman Empire, it was modeled after the Byzantine kamelaukion (closed bonnet-like headdress), similar to those used in the Orthodox church. The crown has two main parts: a broad circlet with a wreath of fleurs-de-lis and a closed, spherical helmet rising from it. The frontal lily bears a Greek cross.
Read more about this topic: Austrian Crown Jewels
Famous quotes containing the words household and/or treasure:
“Except that household virtue, most uncommon,
Of constancy to a bad, ugly woman.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“There is, of course, a gold mine or a buried treasure on every mortgaged homestead. Whether the farmer ever digs for it or not, it is there, haunting his daydreams when the burden of debt is most unbearable.”
—Fawn M. Brodie (1915–1981)