Prince Eugene and Baroque Austria

For the first time, the province of Lower Austria was not the sole organizer of a provincial exhibition, but the Prince Eugene Exhibition of 1986 was organized jointly with the Republic of Austria - represented by the Federal Ministry of Science and Research.

The reason for this was that after many years of lying fallow, the Marchfeldschloss Niederweiden had been restored and was to be used. In the course of preparing for the exhibition, it was also possible to initiate the renovation of part of Schlosshof (the spelling was only changed to Schloss Hof years later) and thus revitalize this mighty and magnificent building on the eastern border of the province. Both palaces had belonged to Prince Eugene - in 1986 both were owned by the Republic of Austria - and so it seemed obvious to use them as venues for a commemorative exhibition to mark the 250th anniversary of his death.

“This exhibition will primarily attempt to present the image of Prince Eugene in a new light. This is relatively easy from a scholarly point of view because a lot of valuable preliminary work has been published in recent decades,” said exhibition director Karl Gutkas, explaining the concept in his contribution to the catalog. However, it is always necessary to reinterpret Prince Eugene and his time. His task and that of his team was therefore to supplement and expand the museum's picture of Prince Eugene and the time in which he lived.

Previously unknown image sources were made accessible and documents that had been considered lost were found again, according to Gutkas: “However, the mutual supplementation of written sources and real objects enables a completely new historical picture. At the same time, attempts were also made to rethink the prince's function as a builder or his human behavior.”

Prince Eugene was one of the most important patrons of his time. He had three points of contact with the Marchfeld: He received the Obersiebenbrunn estate as a gift from Emperor Charles VI. He bought Niederweiden Palace, which Johann Bernhard Fischer von Erlach had built for Prince Starhemberg, and had Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt generously redesign the palace courtyard.

Prince Eugene is one of the most famous personalities in Austrian history. “As a general and statesman, he is closely linked to the fate of Austria; as a builder, art lover, patron and collector, he is just as important for the collection of works of art in Austria as his library is for the holdings of the Austrian National Library,” explained Science Minister Heinz Fischer in his foreword to the catalog.

“His career shows once again that the Habsburg Empire knew how to be a center of attraction for personalities outside the territory of the Empire. Moreover, Prince Eugene is a universal phenomenon in his work and charisma, the like of which is no longer known today”, wrote Governor Siegfried Ludwig about the general and statesman.

In the years after 1986, the Marchfelder Schlösserverein, under its founding president Werner Fasslabend, organized further exhibitions in Schlosshof and Niederweiden, which were visited by up to 150,000 people each year.

Schloss Hof

Schloss Niederweiden