Liechtenstein Museum

The Liechtenstein Garden Palace stands in Vienna’s ninth district, a Baroque palace on Fürstengasse near the southern edge of the Liechtensteinpark. Prince Johann Adam Andreas commissioned the building in the late 17th century, and Domenico Egidio Rossi designed it as a mix of city and country house in the Roman style. Artists Marcantonio Franceschini, Antonio Bellucci, Andrea Pozzo, and Johann Michael Rottmayr decorated its interiors. The shell was finished by 1700 and the whole palace by the early 1700s. The Princely Family of Liechtenstein still owns the building today. The palace once housed one of the world’s largest private art collections, gathered over five centuries by the House of Liechtenstein. From 1805 to 1938 the collection was open to the public here, then moved to Vaduz during the Second World War. Between 2004 and 2011 the Liechtenstein Museum occupied the palace, showing paintings and sculptures alongside works on loan. The building’s artworks included cycles by Peter Paul Rubens and pieces by other masters from the 16th to the 20th century. Visitors find a grand Baroque palace with richly decorated rooms and a formal garden laid out in the 18th century. The garden once featured vases and statues by Giovanni Giuliani, later reshaped in a neoclassical style by Joseph Kornhäusel around 1820. An orangery from 1700 stands opposite the palace on Fürstengasse, and the park still contains remnants of its original design. The building’s elegant façade and historic interiors remain recognisable even though regular museum operations have ended.