I’m not going to bother you with Eugene’s exploits at Zenta, Turin, or Petrovaradin, because this is a post about the Belvedere, not a Commander-in-Chief of the Habsburg Empire, and I’m guessing that none of you would give a jot anyway, so what is there to see and do here?

The Belvedere, in actual fact, consists of two palaces – the Upper Belvedere and the Lower Belvedere, with a garden in the French style running downhill between the two: The French influence stems from Prince Eugene’s upbringing in the court of King Louis XIV.

You have a choice of either walking downhill from the Upper Belvedere or uphill from the Lower Belvedere, and from a historical perspective it doesn’t matter which way round you do it as the history of the two are interconnected, but as somebody who prefers to use my head rather than my feet, I chose to catch Tram D from the Ringstrasse up to the Schloss Belvedere stop and take a look around the Upper Belvedere first.

The Featured Picture above and the two below show the Upper Belvedere from the Belvedere Lake.

Although the Lower Belvedere was the first of the two palaces to be built, the Upper Belvedere is the more impressive: Don’t run away with the idea though that this is a palace showing how Prince Eugene lived while he was here, because after his body was laid to rest in St. Stephen’s Cathedral, his niece, who inherited it in 1736, had no interest in the place at all. It wasn’t until Empress Maria Theresa purchased the estate in 1752 that the Belvedere got a new lease of life, and with a change of hands came a change of use.

Prince Eugene had been an avid art collector, and when Maria Theresa (along with her son, Emperor Joseph II) decided to give the general public access to some of the imperial treasures, the Upper Belvedere seemed the ideal location to transfer the Imperial Picture Gallery from the Hofburg. When the doors re-opened in 1781 the palace was to become one of the world’s first public museums, and the collection remained here until the purpose-built Museum of Fine Arts was constructed in 1891.

With the relocation of the imperial collection, the palace was no longer used as a museum, but five years later it was brought out of retirement when Emperor Franz Joseph thought it a suitable home for his heir apparent, Franz Ferdinand. The Archduke’s life was cut short however when he was shot dead by a Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, in Sarajevo on 28^th June 1914. The assassination prompted retaliation by Austria and on 28^th July war was declared against Serbia – and by 4^th August the world was at war – a war that ended in defeat for the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy and one of the deadliest conflicts in human history.

The outcome of WWI saw Austria become a republic, and the Belvedere, after becoming nationalized, became a museum once again. During the inter-war years the complex became known collectively as the Austrian Gallery, but there were three separate parts to it, with the Upper Belvedere being home to 19^th century art.

WWII also took its toll when serious damage was inflicted on the fabulous Marble Hall, but by 1953 restoration work had once again turned it back into a palace that Prince Eugene himself would have been proud of.

I’ll be discussing the development of the lower part of the estate and how WWII affected the Belvedere in general shortly, but suffice it to say, that eventually all the treasures were brought together under the one roof of the Upper Belvedere, where today you can see the greatest collection of Austrian art in a magnificent Baroque setting.

The gallery has art that dates from the middle ages to the world’s largest collection of Gustav Klimt’s paintings, but the bad news is that when I was here, photography was not permitted, but the good news is – it is now, and thanks to a short YouTube video by Pingkit, you can also have a taste of what the museum has to offer without leaving your armchair.

The good thing about the Belvedere is that even if you’re not interested in art it’s still worth a visit because a walk through the gardens doesn’t cost a bean. They were designed by Dominique Girard, a pupil of Andre Le Notre at Versailles, and even though the patterned bedding had been grassed over when I was here, I believe they are now being reinstated. The gardens may not be on the same scale as Versailles, but following the water features and sculptures down through the tiered fountains and cascades towards the Lower Belvedere and Orangery is an absolute delight.

As the Lower Belvedere comes into view, it’s obvious that this was the least important of the two palaces. Even when Maria Theresa bought the estate, she allowed it to be used as a place where vulnerable members of the family could retreat to during the French Revolution, and the only art that was kept here was a gallery of her Habsburg ancestors.

That said, the gallery was enlarged when a home had to be found for the imperial collection at Ambras Castle after Austria was forced to cede The Tyrol to Bavaria after the Treaty of Pressburg (Bratislava) was signed in 1805. This collection also went to the Museum of Fine Arts in 1891.

In 1903, (at the same time as the Archduke Franz Ferdinand was living here), the Lower Belvedere installed Austria’s first collection of modern art. Known as the Moderne Gallerie, it was instigated by the Vienna Secession, and this is when Gustav Klimt’s paintings arrived, including ‘The Kiss’.

As I mentioned earlier, When Austria became a republic, the Belvedere became known as the Austrian Gallery with three separate museums: The Lower Belvedere became a gallery of Medieval art in 1923, the Upper Belvedere became the aforementioned Gallery of 19^th century Art in 1924 and the Orangery took over the role as Moderne Gallerie in 1929.

During WWII, Hitler’s dislike of modern art saw the Moderne Gallerie close down and some of Gustav Klimt’s work mysteriously disappear, but there have also been several legal cases about how some artist’s work have found their way into the Belvedere Museum that had strong claims of being looted by the Nazis.

In 2006 the Belvedere returned five of  Klimt’s work to the heirs of Adele Bloch-Bauer, but the portrait of Amalie Zuckerkandl was adjudicated by an Austrian arbitration panel that it had not been looted. Amalie Zuckerkandl and her daughter both died in Auschwitz concentration camp, but allowing the painting to remain in Austria raised more than a few eyebrows, considering that the country was perceived to be not unsympathetic to the union with Nazi Germany.

There is more to the Belvedere than Gustav Klimt’s work of course, and to see work by other famous Austrian artists such as Egon Schiele and Richard Gerstl, then the Upper Belvedere is the place to go, especially as the Lower Belvedere and Orangery have now been adapted to hold temporary exhibitions.

With that in mind, and the weather looking good, not to mention  another admission charge, I decided to give the Lower Belvedere a miss and head on out to Schwarzenbergplatz where the Heroes Monument to the Red Army reminds everyone that no sooner as the extreme right wing Nazis had gone, the extreme left wing Soviets moved in.

POSTED – FEBRUARY 2023