Imperial car

This article deals with the Austrian Emperor's carriage. This is also the name given to double-decker cars with an open upper deck used on horse-drawn railways

Coronation carriage with imperial train in front of the giant gate of St. Stephen's Church in Vienna (painting by Prestel around 1848/1850)

Entry of Joseph II for the coronation in Frankfurt, his carriage is in the middle (painting by van Meyten's school (?) Around 1764)

The Imperial Carriage at the Coronation in Budapest (1916)

The golden imperial carriage was the coronation carriage of the imperial court in Vienna . The carriage is kept in the wagon castle (inventory number W 1).

history

According to various legends, the imperial carriage should come from Spain or France . In fact, it is the work of the Viennese master Franz Xaver Wagenschön . The year of manufacture is not entirely clear; the car was probably made for Emperor Charles VI between 1735 and 1740 . manufactured. The carriage has been adapted several times. For the coronation of Josef II as Roman Emperor in Frankfurt in 1764, however, a very similar carriage was probably used, which was adapted in 1820 as a "funeral car".

The imperial car was used several times, around 1835 for the Lower Austrian hereditary homage , 1838 for the coronation in Milan and most recently for the Hungarian coronation in Budapest in 1916.

Furnishing

The car has an empty weight of four tons . Its length is 6.77 meters, width 2.12 meters and height 3.55 meters.

The imperial car was designed as a French grand carosse . Its structure is designed in the baroque style, consists of linden wood and is covered with gold leaf . The eight windows have panes made of Venetian glass . The roof is adorned with a large model of the Austrian imperial crown. Gold tassels hang from the four corners of the car.

The interior is upholstered and decorated with red velvet and silk . The painted panels of the box fields on the sides are signed by Franz Xaver Wagenschön and dated with the year 1763. They show allegories of the ruler's virtues , which presumably refer to Empress Maria Theresa , the daughter of Charles VI. Respectively.

The imperial carriage was initially pulled by six, and from 1851, after Austria was elevated to its own empire , by eight Kladruber white horses . The large wheels were always kept in extra cases and only reassembled before the actual ceremony to protect them. Spare wheels were used for other trips. Due to its great weight, the car could only be pulled at a slow pace. For the coronation in Budapest, the car had to be dismantled and transported in parts across the Danube .

After the Spanish court ceremony, the imperial carriage did not have a driver's seat . The two coachmen sat instead on the first and last horse on the left. Lackeys , known as "middle boys", dressed in "Spanish livery ", accompanied the train as it went. The liveries were made of velvet in Habsburg black and yellow and represented the highest-ranking clothing of the servants of the imperial court stables. They were only worn on extremely solemn occasions.

The mold wore a harness in the Rococo style , richly decorated with red velvet, gold embroidery , tassels and rosettes . The horses wore ostrich feathers called fiocches on their heads .

The imperial carriage was intended as a symbol and functioned as an insignia of the imperial family, it represented the splendor and dignity of the monarchy . Only the imperial and crown prince couple were allowed to use it. For this reason, it was only used for the very highest occasions, such as imperial coronations, tributes , major ecclesiastical festivals such as Corpus Christi or for special events such as the entry of Crown Princess Stephanie into Vienna for her marriage to Crown Prince Rudolf in 1881.

Aftermath

Apparently the imperial car made an impression on the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi . In the winter of 1966 an Iranian minister appeared at the Viennese car maker Josef Klicmann jun. and gave him the order to build a new coronation carriage for the Shah.

Josef Klicmann's father worked for the kuk court purveyor Sebastian Armbruster for years. After he went into business for himself, he built fiakers . His son continued to run the business, every now and then repairing carriages in the wagon castle.

Klicmann gathered a dozen craftsmen to build the carriage. At the end, the carriage was 4.4 meters long, 2 meters wide and 2.5 meters high. For safety reasons, the carriage covered with gold leaf was armored and weighed three tons at the end, which were pulled by eight white horses. Klicmann had to finish the carriage in nine months, the normal production time would have been two years. The costs amounted to several million schillings.

See also

• Gold State Coach to the Monarchs of Great Britain
• Gouden Koets the monarch of the Netherlands

literature

• Martin Haller: Horses under the double-headed eagle . Olms / Verlag Stocker, Graz 2002, ISBN 978-3487084305
• Oswald M. Klotz: The last of a guild: Coronation coach builder . In: The press . Kuk court purveyors today (X) / 14. February, 1977.

Web links

• Imperial car. Wagenburg, accessed on September 22, 2018 (Inv. No. WGBG_W_1). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Gala car during court mourning, so-called "funeral car". (No longer available online.) Wagenburg, archived from the original on March 30, 2010 ; Retrieved on July 28, 2010 (Inv. No. WGBG_W_2). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.