VIENNA (AFP) – A long-lost carriage once used almost daily by Austria’s longest-serving monarch Franz Joseph for his commute from the Schoenbrunn palace to his office in central Vienna has gone on display after an epic renovation.
With tourists flocking to Vienna for the festive period, the carefully restored vehicle can be seen at the Imperial Carriage Museum, which houses one of the world’s most important collections.
“People usually saw him in exactly this type of vehicle, and the emperor in his beloved everyday carriage became a popular subject of postcards and paintings,” historian and museum curator Mario Doeberl told AFP.
People would line the streets, hoping to throw petitions and protest letters into his carriage, knowing it was the only way to get the emperor’s ear, Doeberl said.
But his well-known commute also made him a potential assassination target and police also patrolled to make sure nobody came close.
The head of the Habsburg dynasty had access to about 600 vehicles including sleighs and sedan chairs.
After the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1918, only 100 of the most valuable vehicles went into the Imperial carriage museum which opened four years later.
The royal carriage collection in Paris – once the most important centre of production – was mostly destroyed in the French revolution.
The emperor’s everyday carriage was thought to have been lost until it resurfaced at a stud farm in the 1990s and was painstakingly restored after a 20-year-long fight for funding.
Museum conservator Matthias Manzini was one of a handful of experts who brought the carriage back to life. The run-down, rusty vehicle, which had been repainted, was barely recognisable when it first entered the collection.
The carriage has gone on show again more than a century after one of the world’s longest-serving leaders last sat in it.
“A carriage is a moving work of art, and many different craftsmen are involved, including blacksmiths, sculptors, carpenters and architects,” Manzini told AFP.
“These vehicles are no longer in use, but back then they were the most elaborate, most expensive ones – similar to a Rolls Royce nowadays,” said the 37-year-old conservator.
