Princely Family of Liechtenstein art collection, Collecting can be a transmissible disease. In the Liechtenstein royal family the affection goes back to their ancestor Hartmann von Liechtenstein (1544-85). The principality, known for its welcoming banks, was only established in 1719, though the princes actually went on living in Vienna and buying lots of paintings, as well as many other items, on show at the Liechtenstein museum in Vienna.
The Palais Lumière in Evian, on the shores of Lake Geneva, is exhibiting an impressive selection of works from the collection with 70 paintings, 20 sculptures and 15 pieces of furniture. We lingered for a moment in front of a copy by Brueghel the Younger of one of his father's most famous paintings, Census at Bethlehem, in which the Virgin Mary on her ass and Joseph, bearing his saw, arrive in a snow-covered village in Flanders, then stopped to admire Mars and Rhea Silvia by Peter Paul Rubens. It brims over with energy and colour, Mars's red mantle swelling with erotic fury in response to the folded, yellow robes of the vestal virgin, surprised in her sleep.
Another Rubens followed, featuring a suitably horned satyr holding a basket of fruit, which suggests that the Liechtensteins had the same saucy taste as their Habsburg sovereigns. But a third piece, The Lamentation of Christ, tempered our suspicions.
The Liechtensteins take pride in their forebears, giving rise to a gallery of portraits. We were struck by Joseph Wenzel I von Liechtenstein, who having been inducted into the Order of the Golden Fleece in 1740 decided to commission a work by Hyacinthe Rigaud, then the most fashionable portraitist in Paris. The profusion of drapes tend to conceal the princely figure, but he was apparently so pleased with the result that, in addition to his fee, he gave the painter a diamond-incrusted gold snuffbox.
In another register we were moved by the face of Marie Franziska von Liechtenstein, painted a century later, clasping her doll as she slept. She was only two when Friedrich von Amerling did this portrait.
The Liechtenstein collection also includes humble, anonymous figures, some painted by Frans Hals. His Portrait of a Man is a masterpiece, a symphony of blacks and greys.
At another level the exhibition's curators, the head of the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna Johann Kräftner and art historian Caroline Messensee, offer a glimpse of the changing tastes of a central European royal family over a period of almost 500 years.