Journal ARS 45 (2012) 1

Ingrid CIULISOVÁ

Vojvoda Albert Sasko-Tešínsky a jeho vkus
[Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen and His Taste]

(Summary)

The beginnings of Albert of Saxe-Teschen’s (1738 – 1822) more intensive interest in art and art collecting are associated with his period in Bratislava (former Pressburg) from 1766 to 1780, and his fascination with the ideas of the French Enlightenment and Freemasonry. The present essay is primarily concerned with the social and cultural values which shaped Albert’s taste and his preferences in this period. The Empress Maria Theresa appointed the young Prince Albert to the position of Governor (locumtenens regius) and Chief Captain of Hungary in 1765. Albert was a younger son of Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and his wife, Maria Josepha of Austria. He was not only a favourite of the Empress, but also the future husband of her daughter Maria Christina. Bratislava Castle, one of the oldest and most important fortresses in the Kingdom of Hungary, became the seat of the young couple. In the 1760s, it was refurbished into an elegant court residence. This renovation also included the erection of a new building, later called the Teresianum, built in the eastern part of the castle and designed by Franz Anton Hillebrandt (1719 – 1797) in close cooperation with Albert. In 1773, the Duke of Saxe-Teschen was visited in Bratislava by Giacomo Durazzo (1717 – 1794), a cultivated aristocrat, impresario and diplomat from a noble Genoese aristocratic family. Like Albert, he was a Freemason and an enthusiastic supporter of the French Enlightenment. Durazzo’s visit to the Duke led to the remarkable project of producing an encyclopaedic survey of the visual arts from the early Renaissance. Its main aim was to use reproduction prints to illustrate the history and progress of painting and to contribute to a better knowledge of the art of the past. Albert, for whom art was one of the integral aspects of human knowledge, kept his graphic collection in the library, together with other art objects. In accordance with Enlightenment ideas, the collection of prints represented a visual equivalent to the collection of books stored there. The placing of prints with the book collection demonstrated the importance of human knowledge, including art. Apart from the books and graphic works, alabaster copies of sculptures found in Rome, Florence and Herculaneum were also on display here with busts and Etruscan vases in the anteroom. Thanks to the surviving documentation of the reconstruction of Bratislava Castle in the eighteenth century, we know that the library (‘Bibliothec’) was located on the piano nobile, the first floor of the south wing of the castle. Apart from the library, the renovated Bratislava Castle included another room associated with Albert, namely his picture cabinet (‘Arbeit Cabinet mit Bildern’), situated on the third floor of the new building. There Albert installed a collection of forty-three paintings, mostly of the ‘cabinet’ format. Although he acknowledged the Enlightenment ideal of the antique, his cabinet did not contain works by Italian masters. Instead paintings by seventeenth century Flemish and Dutch masters predominated there. However, during Albert’s time as governor in Hungary, old masters drawings were also found in other rooms in the castle. For instance, in the picture gallery are documented works by renowned Italian painters together with sketches for Rafael’s famous Transfiguration in the Vatican Pinacoteca, while in the garde-meuble are listed sketches of the Resurrection by Albrecht Dürer. It is important to mention that the sketches from the garde-meuble may be identical with drawings showing Resurrection of Christ and Samson Battling the Philistines mentioned two years later by Christian von Mechel. However, their location suggests that Dürer’s drawings were not in the centre of Albert’s attention at the time. Moreover, it seems that there were also other works of art on display in the interior of the castle that were not recorded in the discussed inventories. This is confirmed, for example, by an engraving by Jakob Schmutzer of Ulysses Abducting Andromache’s Son Astyanax which is dated 1778 and dedicated to Maria Christina. Schmutzer created it on the basis of a drawing made ten years before by Albert of Saxe-Teschen. According to the text on this print, the model was a painting by the Italian painter Mattia Preti, which was located in Bratislava Castle. The governor of the Austrian Netherlands, Prince Charles of Lorraine, died on 4 July 1780, and Maria Theresa herself died on 29 November of the same year. According to the marriage agreement from 1766, Albert and Christina were to take over the vacant position of governor of the Netherlands. They left Bratislava at the beginning of 1781 and were welcomed in Brussels on 10 July of the same year. They immediately concentrated on building and furnishing the new residence at Laeken (Schönenberg), to which Albert transferred his library and collection. The chateau at Laeken, like the Teresianum, proudly bore the stamp of Albert’s passion for Neoclassicism. The works of Flemish and Dutch painters, however, continued to display Albert’s own taste and his private cultural choice.

English translation by M. C. Styan