The Habsburg Staterooms

The 21 Habsburg Staterooms are spread out over two floors of the Albertina palace.

The magnificent Hall of the Muses forms the centrepiece, flanked on either side by stately apartments.

The palace’s original Louis XI décor had been ordered from the royal court ateliers in Paris and Versailles for Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen’s Brussels residence, Laeken Castle.

Small Spanish Apartment

In 1822, Archduke Carl had the interiors redone in Empire style, commissioning the Viennese furniture manufacturer Joseph Danhauser (1780-1829) to refurbish the entire palace with fine furniture and elaborately inlaid parquet floors. Of the décor from the second half of the 19th century when the palace belonged to Archduke Albrecht, only the Rococo Room survives. The Spanish Apartments were created under Albrecht’s nephew and heir, Archduke Friedrich. This was the only permanent residence of the Spanish royal family outside Spanish territory. When the palace was expropriated by the new Austrian state in 1919, Friedrich was permitted to take all its furnishings with him into exile in Hungary. The now empty apartments were converted into a study hall, a library, exhibition rooms, depots and office space.

In 2000, work began on the comprehensive restoration of the staterooms. The return of the original furniture was secured through successive acquisitions as well as loans from the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art (MAK) and the Federal Furniture Depot’s Imperial Furniture Collection. International specialists took part in the restoration work, which was largely concluded by 2007. After decades of neglect, today the lavish period interiors transport the visitor back in time, evoking the age of Neoclassicism and the private and ceremonial lives of the Habsburgs who lived in the palace.