Golden Carriage of Prince Joseph Wenzel Von Liechtenstein: The Metropolitan Museum of Art

At the beginning of the eighteenth century, there were many hundreds of carriages in most European cities; in Paris, London, Vienna, and Rome there were thousands. But the number of gala carriages in the courts alone was far greater than the population figures of these cities would have led one to expect. Only a few of the numerous and varied vehicles of that period have been preserved in the large collections of Madrid and Lisbon, Moscow and Stockholm, Munich and Vienna, where they are counted among the most popular attractions. Their splendor, pomp, and artistry fill viewers with astonishment, but few are in a position to assess the important function that carriages once played in affairs of state and court. Similarly, when we look at certain paintings in palaces or galleries, colorful depictions of joyous festivities or solemn ceremonies, we find it difficult to establish the relationship between these images and historical reality. These pictorial reports, however, seem to be essentially accurate, and the vehicles on exhibition must be the ones actually used in the ceremonies, assumptions that can be proved by a fortunate historical occurrence, the survival of a unique example: the Golden Carriage of Prince Joseph Wenzel von Liechtenstein. [This book was originally published in 1985 and has gone out of print. This edition is a print-on-demand version of the original book.]