Palais Lanckoroński

Palais Lanckoroński in Vienna, seen from the street, old photograph from 1895

The Italian Salon, with some recognisable art pieces

The Palais Lanckoroński was a palace in Vienna, located at Jacquingassse 16-18, in the III. District Landstraße. It was constructed in 1894-95 for Count Karol Lanckoroński (in German: Karl Graf Lanckoronski) and his family, as a personal residence, and it housed the count's enormous art collection. The palace was built in a neo-baroque style by the theatre architects Ferdinand Fellner and Hermann Gottlieb Helmer. The building was up to three stores high, set back from the street, and protected by a wall with double-gates. The entrance hall was wood-panelled, two stories high, and decorated with portraits of the family. Other festive halls were decorated with frescoes and luxurious gobelin tapestries from the 17th century. Precious paintings, furniture and sculpture from different eras combined to form a decor ensemble. The rooms had different names, reflecting the theme of the objects in them.

History

The owner Count Karol Lanckoroński and his wife Małgorzatą (née Lichnowsky)

The noble Lanckoroński family, aristocratics originally from Galicia, had assembled a major art collection through the generations, including Italian Renaissance paintings as well as German, French, and Dutch pictures, antique sculptures, bronzes, glass miniatures and porcelain. Count Karol Lanckoroński was a personality who continued his family’s interest in the collection. He was a collector, archaeologist, art patron, author and conservator and also served as chamberlain to emperor Franz Joseph I. His collection included an enormous antique sculpture collection, as well as paintings by Tintoretto, Canaletto and Rembrandt. The art collection in the Lanckoroński Palais became on of the largest in Vienna. His friends, whom he also aided financially and were frequent visitors to his Viennese residence, were the artists Hans Makart, Victor Tilgner, Arnold Böcklin, Kaspar Zumbusch and Auguste Rodin. Writers and authors such as Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Rainer Maria Rilke paid their visits.
After the end of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the count decided to return to Poland and began to move a large part of his collection to the family’s ancestral estate in Galicia.

With the annexation of Austria to Nazi-Germany in 1938 and the start of World War II shortly afterwards, the Nazis not only confiscated Jewish property, but also any property which Nazi functionaries desired. Since the heir Count Anton Lanckoronski was a Polish citizen, he was treated under the new regulation "Verordnung über Behandlung von Vermögen der Angehörigen des ehemaligen polnischen Staates" and the whole collection was confiscated.

Adolf Hitler decreed that all works confiscated in Austria should remain within the country, although items purchased could be exported. This measure was introduced as a result of the acquisition by Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring of two paintings from the Lanckoroński collection. Göring kept the pictures despite an order from Hitler to return them; nevertheless, the decree prevented the loss of the majority of Austria's works of art beyond its borders

With the outbreak of World War II a year later, the SS confiscated the palace, most of the art objects were brought to Schloss Hohenems in the state of Vorarlberg, for safety. However most of the objects fell victim to fire, and the palace itself was plundered in the aftermath of the war and set on fire. The ruins, though, still were sturdy, and the roof was temporarily repaired. The palace and the gardens then were abandoned and fell into a state of disrepair. Financial costs for a renovation were deemed too high, subsequently, so during the 1960s the palace was completely torn down, and a modern office block was built on the spot for Hoffmann-La Roche. Today this office block serves as Austrian headquarter of Motorola.

Lanckoroński Collection

Saint George and the Dragon, by Paolo Uccello, today in the National Gallery of Art

The Scholar at the Lectern (known as The Father of the Jewish Bride), by Rembrandt

Jupiter, Mercury and Virtue, by Dosso Dossi

Many of the objects in the collection originally came from the Royal Castle in Warsaw. They consisted of a large number of paintings which hung in the so-called "Gallery of Stanisław August", named after King Stanisław August Poniatowski. After the final partition of Poland in 1795, many of the objects in the Royal Castle were sold off and bought by polish noble families such as the Lanckoroński. Other pieces were sculptures, textiles, silver-ware, etc. which was accumluated over time. About 120 art objects were destroyed in a fire after the war, but much of it saved too . The art objects that remained were sold by the three heirs to the National Gallery, London as well as the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. The rest was intended to be returned to Poland, but only on the condition once Poland is free from communism. It was finally presented as a gift to Poland by Count Lanckoroński's youngest daughter Countess Karolina Lanckorońska in the 1990s. The so-called Lanckoroński Collection can be seen in the Wawel Royal Castle in Kraków and the Royal Castle in Warsaw.

Paintings in the Royal Castle, Warsaw

Paintings from the collection formerly housed in Vienna, today in the Royal Castle in Warsaw include:

• Adriaen van Ostade, The Smoker and the Drunkard
• Anton von Maron, The Brothers Franciszek and Kazimierz Rzewuski with Roman Buildings in the Background
• David Teniers the Younger, The Country Doctor
• Rembrandt van Rijn, The Scholar at the Lectern (known as The Father of the Jewish Bride)
• from Rembrandt or his workshop, Girl in a Hat (known as The Jewish Bride)

other pieces are by Ludolph Backhuysen and Philips Wouwerman.

Paintings in the Wawel Royal Castle, Kraków

82 works from the Lanckoroński collection were donated by the heiress Countess Karolina Lanckorońska. These include works by Simone Martini, Bernard Daddi, Bartolo di Fredi, Apollonius di Giovanni, Jacopo del Sellaio, Vittore Crivella, Dosso Dossi, Paris Bordone, Garofal, Giorgio Vasari, Alessandro Allori, and Leandro and Francesco Bassano. There are also other paintings by Italian artists such as Antonio Zanchi, Pietro Muttoni (Della Vecchia), Francesco Solimena, Alessandro Magnasco and Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.:

• Bartolo di Fredi, Saint Augustine
• Niccolo di Tommaso, Madonna and Child with Saints and Angels
• Simone Martini, Angel
• Bernardo Daddi, Enthroned Madonna and Child
• Sano di Pietro, Madonna
• Rossello di Jacopo Franchi, Madonna and Child
• Dosso Dossi, Jupiter, Mercury and Virtue (Donated by Dr. Anton Lanckoronski and used to be in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna under Inv. 8486 and was restituted to the heir in 2000, and then given to the Wawel Museum)

Paintings in the Österreichische Galerie

Pieces in the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere in Vienna

• Heinrich Angeli, Margarethe Gräfin Lanckoronska
• Carl von Blaas, Leonie Gräfin Lanckoronska, geb. Gräfin Potocka, mit ihrem Sohn Karl

Rudolf von Alt paintings

The realist painter Rudolf von Alt met Count Lanckoronski in Nuremberg on August 29 1881 during one of his numerous journeys. In the autumn of that year, he executed a series of ten interiors of the Count’s apartments at Riemergasse 8, in Vienna’s first district Innere Stadt. The paintings sometimes get confused as being interior depictions of the count's Palais at Jacquingassse. The paintings done however are of his former residence before he had his new one completed.

The watercolour series represent various salons and rooms decorated with paintings and sculptures of the 17th and 18th century. In some, the Count can be seen sitting in one of the armchairs, reading a book. In his refined technique, von Alt very precisely depicted all works of art, which are easy to identify. For example the bust of Friedrich von Schiller, done by Johann Heinrich Dannecker, can be seen as well as paintings by Thomas Gainsborough, Anton von Maron, Jacob Isaakszoon van Ruysdael, and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller.

• 
  The morning room in the (old) Palais Lanckoronski, painted by Rudolf von Alt
• 
  One of the drawing rooms
• 
  The library
• 
  The office of the count

Further reading

• Mieczyslaw Paszkiewicz. Jacek Malczewski in Asia Minor and Rozdol: The Lanckoroński Foundation. Polish Library (1972). ASIN B00154PE5Q
• Karolina Lanckoronska. Those Who Trespass Against Us: One Woman's War Against the Nazis. Da Capo Press. 2007. ISBN 0306815370

External links

• Warsaw Royal Castle | The Lanckoroński Gallery
• Wawel Royal Castle | Furniture Restoration Workshop on Lanckoroński art work
• Wawel Royal Castle | Archives of Lanckoroński memorabilia