Aristocracy of Taste

An interest in art and good taste is something that is usually taken for granted with members of aristocratic circles; nonetheless, concrete examples demonstrate that art leanings of the aristocracy take many different forms and have many layers. The exhibition will introduce the collecting activities of the Moravian lineage of the Altgraves and Princes Salm-Reifferscheidt, from the year 1763 when they acquired the Rájec na Moravě estate until the late 19th century when their art collecting and commissioning activities ceased, through a selection of prize and remarkable artefacts as well as further items (including 3-D ones) and documents providing an insight into the building of the Salm-Reifferscheidt art collections and conveying the relationship of the individual members of the family with visual art. The exhibition will also touch upon phenomena such as art patronage, amateur art activities and art education in noble families.

The art collections in Rájec nad Svitavou Chateau are unique for their extent, the number of high-quality artworks and, in particular, for the fact that, unlike most similar historical collections, they have survived almost complete, including a vast amount of archive material and documentation. A precious collection of early Romanticism painting with works by Peter Fendi, Karl Russ, Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld, Josef von Führich and others that was commissioned directly for the Rájec chateau interiors will be showcased for the first time in this extent. Some of the artworks went on to inspire writers and musicians, for example, the famous composer Franz Schubert. The exhibition will also offer a symbolic view into the salon of the leading art patron Alžběta Princess of Salm-Reifferscheidt, née Princess of Liechtenstein who in the second half of the 19th century supported and employed a number of prominent artists from Austria, Germany and Norway (Heinrich von Angeli, Louis Gurlitt, Johan Martin Nielssen, Franz von Lenbach, Viktor Tilgner and others). The Salm-Reifferscheidts maintained friendly contacts with most of them and would regularly host them in their chateaus in Rájec and Blansko. Their friendship with the famous Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin is documented by an exquisite portrait of Karl the Altgrave of Salm-Reifferscheidt as a child that came into existence in 1879 during the family's stay in Florence, and until recently was considered lost. It was only rediscovered in the course of the exhibition preparation and after restoration will be presented to the public, probably for the first time  since its first presentation in Vienna in 1880.

The exhibition project introduces manners in which members of the aristocracy related to art in the late baroque, and particularly the metamorphoses of these relations in the 19th century, after the onset of the modern age when the nobility was losing its exclusive social and economic status. At the same time, the approaches of the individual members of the Salm-Reifferscheidt family to visual art have a more general informative value, as analogical examples can be found in many other aristocratic families. Similarly, the transformations of their relationship with art and artists in this period can be observed across the whole society. 

Exhibition is organized in cooperation with Národní památkový ústav

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