HONG KONG.- The Hong Kong Palace Museum and the world-renowned Liechtenstein Princely Collections (the Collections) are currently presenting the special exhibition “Odysseys of Art: Masterpieces Collected by the Princes of Liechtenstein” in Gallery 8 of the museum since 9 November 2022, and where it will continue through 20 February 2023, with LGT Private Banking (LGT) as Principal Sponsor.

This exhibition is the museum’s first major special exhibition after its opening exhibitions, as well as the first exhibition featuring European masterpieces. Co-curated by the teams of experts from the Hong Kong Palace Museum and the Liechtenstein Princely Collections, the exhibition sheds light on the Princely House of Liechtenstein’s history of art collecting, and the masterpieces and achievements of many European art masters. The exhibition reflects the exchanges between China and Europe in art and architecture throughout the centuries, thus articulating HKPM’s vision and mission of advancing dialogue among world civilisations and reinforcing Hong Kong’s positioning as a centre for cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world.

Co-curated by HKPM and Liechtenstein Princely Collections
The Hong Kong Palace Museum (HKPM), Hong Kong’s new cultural landmark, and the world- renowned Liechtenstein Princely Collections jointly present “Odysseys of Art: Masterpieces Collected by the Princes of Liechtenstein” with LGT Private Banking (LGT) as Principal Sponsor. This exhibition is the HKPM’s first major special exhibition after its opening exhibitions, as well as the Museum’s first time featuring European masterpieces in dialogue with Chinese art and culture. It articulates the HKPM’s vision and mission of advancing dialogue among world civilisations while reinforcing Hong Kong’s positioning as a centre for cultural exchange between China and the rest of the world. Co-curated by experts from the HKPM and the Liechtenstein Princely Collections, the highly anticipated exhibition will showcase 124 masterpieces for the first time in Hong Kong, including paintings, prints, tapestries, sculptures, and decorative art objects selected from over 30,000 works in the Princely Collections. Among the highlights are paintings by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Anthony van Dyck (1599–1641), two of the most distinguished seventeenth- century European artists of the baroque period. Through these stunning works, visitors will discover the passion for art and the collecting practices of the Princes of Liechtenstein, as well as the exchanges between China and Europe in art and architecture throughout the centuries.

Exhibition Highlights
Divided into eight distinct sections, the exhibition focuses on the history of art collecting in the Princely House of Liechtenstein, featuring five princes whose tastes shaped the Princely Collections. The first one is the Introduction. The following five sections feature one prince at a time, introducing one major aspect of each prince's collecting. The seventh section explores the architectural and garden programme of the princes while the last section briefly introduces the restoration of the two Liechtenstein palaces in Vienna and the conservation efforts of the princely holdings.

The collections of the Prince of Liechtenstein rank among the largest and most important private art collections in the world. Shaped by the distinct interests and tastes of individual princes, the Princely Collections began to form in the sixteenth century and continue to grow today. With more than one hundred of the Collections’ finest artworks on view, the exhibition revisits the key moments, from the seventeenth century to the present, when the princes amassed this panoply of masterpieces and commissioned palaces and gardens.




The Neoclassical Palace on Vienna's Herrengasse
From the fifteenth century onwards, the Liechtenstein family palace on Vienna's Herrengasse ("Lane of the Lords") was expanded and remodelled in the baroque style. Late eighteenth-century Europe witnessed a transition from baroque to a new stylistic epoch known as neoclassicism, which was based on the art and architecture of ancient Greece and Rome. Thereupon, Prince Alois I von Liechtenstein (1759–1805) commissioned the architect Joseph Hardtmuth (1758–1816) to make alterations, completed in 1792, that transformed it into the largest neoclassical palace in Vienna. The project included the princely residence, stables, a riding school, a library, and office buildings. The palace was sold in 1913 and subsequently demolished.

The Beginnings of a Systematic Collection (1608–1627)
The first member of the family to become Prince, Karl I von Liechtenstein (1569–1627) was the founder of the princely family. In 1600 he was appointed Lord High Steward, the highest office at the Habsburg court in Prague, and continued in the role with intermissions until 1607. At court, he cultivated close contacts with artists working for Emperor Rudolf II (r. 1576– 1612) and commissioned works from them. Karl then allied himself with Archduke Matthias (1557–1619), who made him a prince in 1608. He was appointed governor of the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1622 for his role in the Habsburgs' victory in the Battle of White Mountain (1620), after which the Habsburgs consolidated their rule in what is today's Czech Republic.

A Major Milestone (1684–1712)
Prince Johann Adam Andreas I von Liechtenstein (1657–1712) acquired a great number of artworks and commissioned important architectural projects. Around 1700, he built up one of the largest private collections of works by Peter Paul Rubens (1577–1640) and Anthony van Dyck (1599– 1641) and ordered exquisite bronzes from Florentine sculptors. He had a magnificent palace built in Rossau, a suburb outside the city walls of Vienna. In 1694 he purchased a building plot on today's Bankgasse ("Lane of Bank"), where construction of a palace had already begun. Completed by 1705, it was known as the City Palace and served as his principal residence and a gallery for the family collections.

Cosmopolitanism and Diversity (1712–1772)
Prince Joseph Wenzel I von Liechtenstein (1696–1772) was an esteemed military commander and diplomat. During the Polish War of Succession (1733–1738), he and the future Prussian King Frederick II (1712–1786), then Crown Prince, fought in the relief army and encountered each other on several occasions. Their friendship was recorded in personal correspondence and through the exchange of diplomatic gifts. Between 1735 and 1741, Joseph Wenzel served as the Holy Roman Emperor’s envoy to Berlin and Paris. He often sought out artists on his trips and diplomatic missions. Two portraits by Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659–1743), the celebrated portraitist who had painted for Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), resulted from Joseph Wenzel’s time in Paris.

Patron of His Era (1836–1858)
Prince Alois II von Liechtenstein (1796–1858) was always at the cutting edge of the arts. He had the City Palace on Vienna’s Bankgasse remodelled in the neo-rococo style, which was novel at the time. The apartment on the second piano nobile (main floor) of the palace was decorated with the type of Biedermeier paintings that had taken Viennese salons by storm. The Princely Collections still hold some of the most famous Biedermeier works commissioned by Alois, including Friedrich von Amerling’s (1803–1887) portrait of his two-year-old daughter and Peter Fendi’s (1796–1842) watercolours, which record scenes of the princely family’s everyday life. At the prince’s request, Friedrich Schilcher (1811– 1881) painted a portrait depicting him in the unostentatious manner typically associated with Biedermeier portraiture.

New Beginnings (1989–present)
From 1970 onwards, the radical reorganisation and recovery of the family’s finances by Prince Hans-Adam II von und zu Liechtenstein (b. 1945) enabled him to reacquire works sold in the years after the Second World War and make major acquisitions. Apart from important paintings such as Quentin Massys’s (1466–1530) The Tax Collectors and Hans Makart’s (1840–1884) The Death of Cleopatra, masterpieces of bronzes, antique furniture, and porcelain were also added to the collections. With the reopening of the Garden Palace in Rossau in 2004 and the City Palace on Bankgasse in 2013, some holdings are accessible to the public in the two palaces. The Princely Collections rank among the world’s leading private
collections.

Architectural Pursuits: Gardens and Cultural Landscape
From the Middle Ages onwards, the Princes of Liechtenstein possessed numerous estates in the central region of the Habsburg monarchy. The political and social rise of the House of Liechtenstein in the early seventeenth century led to the construction of magnificent edifices, gardens, and parks, transforming a broad region of Moravia (in present- day Czech Republic) into a cultural landscape. The most famous example of this is the area between Lednice (Eisgrub) and Valtice (Feldsberg). It was given its current form between the turn of the eighteenth century and the nineteenth century under the aegis of Princes Alois I (1759–1805) and Johann I (1760–1836), modelled on the new English fashion for natural landscape parks.

Preserving the Past
When the princely family moved its residence and collections to Vaduz in 1938, the two palaces in Vienna fell into disuse. Restoration commenced on the Garden Palace in 2000. After it opened in 2004, work began on the City Palace and was completed in 2013. The highest priority was given to restoring the original materials of the structures to preserve their characteristic features.

The Princely Collections invest heavily in the preservation of their 30,000 holdings. The in-house conservation department not only cares for their proper conservation and restoration but also partners with recognised international laboratories to perform research on selected works. These collaborations provide a deeper understanding of their preservation state and applicable conservation treatments as well as insights into historical materials and techniques.