3-035-539 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

The Glorification of the Union of the Houses of Hapsburg and Lorraine, 1775. In this illusionistic ceiling painting, figures and objects are foreshortened so that they actually seem to exist in the space above the viewer. The impression is one of infinite receding distance. Against a blue sky, putti and other seemingly weightless figures float on clouds and hover in mid-air. Light green, blue, yellow, gold, red, and orange colours blend harmoniously to create an effect of dazzling brilliance. Painted as the final model for the ceiling fresco of the great hall in the imperial palace in Innsbruck, Austria, this allegory represents two marriages between the families of Hapsburg and Lorraine. The modello celebrates Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa's union of forty years earlier with Frans Stephen of Lorraine. Also honoured is an even earlier marriage between the grandfather of Frans Stephan and one of the empress's paternal ancestors. Franz Anton Maulbertsch depicts the latter couple on the two medallions carried aloft by winged figures. In a triumphal carriage below, two figures - allegorical personifications of the two families - grasp hands while a host of angels and other symbolic figures look on approvingly.