Art: Hidden Masterpieces

HISTORICALLY, the reigning princes ot Liechtenstein have chosen to live outside that hereditary principality, usually in their luxurious Austrian palaces Liechtenstein offers a prince neither size (it is one-seventeenth the size of Rhode Island, has only 16,000 people) nor scope. Switzerland, its western neighbor handles posts, customs and foreign interests).

The current monarch, Prince Franz Joseph II, has broken with history. He lives in Vaduz (pop. 3,300), Liechtenstein’s capital. There he keeps—almost entirely to himself—one of the greatest private art collections in the world. Except for a 1948 show of 200 works in Lucerne, hardly any of the prince’s 1,500 paintings, 75 tapestries, or the vast assortment of bronzes porcelain, baroque silver, Renaissance sculpture, Gothic and Renaissance furniture are ever seen by the public. Instead 95% of the collection stays in the prince’s castles, mostly in the cellar and a tower of the castle at Vaduz. The prince neither adds much nor sends anything out on loan.

Art Dealers’ Delight. Until the 16th century and the time of Prince Karl the princes of Liechtenstein were collectors not so much of art as of booty. Then Karl, a prince of the Holy Roman Empire and an Imperial viceroy in Prague put a palaceful of artists and artisans at work turning out paintings and works of silver and gold. His son, Karl Eusebius was even more ardent. He was the delight of Vienna and Antwerp art dealers, for he would buy up whole collections at a time, and added such names to his catalogue as Memling and Van der Goes. He once instructed his son:”With your consort, you and all your successors will be devoted lovers of art and rarities as well.

His descendants took him at his word Prince Johann Adam bought a slew of Van Dycks and Rubenses, possibly including Rubens’ voluptuous Venus with the golden hair (see color). Prince Josef Wenzel, one of the gayest generals in the army of the Empress Maria Theresa, owned so many paintings that, in addition to his main gallery in Vienna, he had to set up sub-galleries in four other castles. The present prince’s great-uncle added paintings by Filippino Lippi, Botticelli and Rembrandt Treasures by the Row. Today most of these paintings hang in storage in rows so close together that a person can barely squeeze through. Some paintings lie higgledy-piggledy on tables and shelves Bronze statues are strewn about, cloaked in spider webs. There are works by Jan Brueghel Lucas Van Leyden, Jan van de Velde and Lucas Cranach the Elder. One portrait of a woman is believed to be by Leonardo da Vinci. One of the rarest items is the brooding portrait of a man (see color), attributed—rightly or wrongly—to the 15th century artist Jean Fouquet.

Of the 1,500 paintings, only 74—including the Venus—can be seen by the public, they hang on the third floor of a building in Vaduz, above the National Tourist Office and the Postage Stamp Museum. And aside from occasionally selling a painting, the prince, whose interests are mostly confined to his investments, pays little heed to his dusty hidden treasure.