There is very little early Italian painting in other Viennese museums. The examples chosen and presented here form a cross section of the most important religious subjects as they reflect the spirituality of the 14th and 15th centuries.
Sienese artists such as Naddo Ceccharelli and Gregorio di Cecco are represented, as are Florentine painters including Lorenzo Monaco, Piero di Cosimo, Franciabigio and Andrea del Sarto.
Saint John the Baptist by Jacopo Sansovino and St. Sebastian by Andrea Mantegna are outstanding examples of sculpture at the time.

The portrait enjoyed its first flowering during the Renaissance, becoming a mirror of society and the new found importance attributed to the individual. In this section, works by Paris Bordone, Raphael and Francesco Salviati are contrasted with portraits by Barthelemy d’Eyck, Hans Mielich and Bernhard Strigel.
Sculpture of the period is represented by pieces by Andrea della Robbia, Antico and Giambologna.

Paolo Pagani and Girolamo Forabosco are representative of the religious history of the Italian Baroque. In the work of Sebastiano Ricci and Pompeo Batoni ancient mythology returns to life in a new monumentality. The combination of strong colours and theatrical movement gives the primal themes a contemporary form.

The builder of the Garden Palace, Prince Johann Adam Andreas I of Liechtenstein, acquired the monumental Decius Mus Cycle by Peter Paul Rubens and it has been the centrepiece of the Princely Collections ever since. From 1807 to 1938 it was exhibited in the Grand Gallery of the Garden Palace. This, once again, is to be its home.

The Princely Collections boast one of the largest holdings of work by Rubens, with more than 30 paintings. A selection of antique and religious subjects bears witness to the impressive diversity of the most prominent master of Flemish painting during the Baroque. A comparison of oil sketches and completed works gives the viewer an insight into the process of creation.

Here hang famous masterpieces of Flemish and Dutch baroque portrait painting. The intimate pictures of Rubens’ children appear alongside the prestigious portrait of Maria de Tassis by Van Dyck. The portrait of an old man painted by Frans Hals displays a radical paring down to the essentials as the painter introduces us to a fascinating personality whose identity remains unknown.

A number of masterpieces in the Princely Collections are representative of the golden century of Dutch painting. Jan van Goyen and Willem van de Velde the Younger capture the breadth of the Dutch landscape and sea. The genre painting of Eglon Hendrik van der Neer and Hendrik Gerritsz. Pot with its carefully executed interiors was very highly regarded by contemporaries. The still-lifes of Jan Davidsz. de Heem and Jan van Huysum are deceptively lifelike.

Time and again, the return to the art of the classical antiquity with its balanced proportions and the gently idealised figure was the starting point for new artistic developments. In Rome the first archaeological excavations of the ancient city in the 16th century provided an incredible impetus for artistic life.

Prince Johann I. admired and supported Beethoven and was a devoted patron of the arts of his day. He also acquired Füger’s Prometheus for the Princely Collections.
Members of the Liechtenstein family had their portraits painted by Angelika Kauffmann and the famous French portraitist Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun. Sculptures by Antonio Canova and Johann Martin Fischer round off the artistic snapshot of this epoch.

The extensive collection of Biedermeier paintings and drawings includes portraits of aristocratic and bourgeois sitters as well as genre and landscape paintings. Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and Friedrich von Amerling are represented with numerous portraits.

The princes of Liechtenstein not only acquired precious paintings for their art collections but also as decoration for their palaces. Marcantonio Franceschini, the favourite painter of Prince Johann Adam Andreas I, was commissioned to produce mythological paintings to decorate the walls and ceilings like tapestries in the Garden Palace in Rossau.