The second series of “Princely Treasures – Liechtenstein Museum Vienna” commemorative is devoted to the ceiling frescos by the Salzburg painter Johann Michael Rottmayr (1654–1730), as seen in the ladies’ and gentlemen’s apartments on the ground floor and in the stairwells of the Liechtenstein Garden Palace in Vienna’s Rossau District.
At the end of the 1680s, after a period of study in Venice where he had mastered the Venetian/Neapolitan mixed technique, Rottmayr returned to his homeland where he was commissioned to produce works for the Archbishop’s palace. In 1696 he settled in Vienna and there became one of the most significant Austrian Baroque painters.
His principal works include the frescos in the churches of St. Peter and St. Charles in Vienna, in the Melk collegiate church, the Klosterneuburg collegiate church and the Garden Palace in Rossau, Vienna, built under Prince Johann Adam Andreas I of Liechtenstein, where Rottmayr created one of the finest examples of his master craftsmanship. Rottmayr had not figured in the original plan for the Palace, which provided for Bologna artists only. However, after making a name for himself as a fresco painter with his recently completed work in the Great Hall of Schönbrunn Palace, in 1705 he was the only local-born artist engaged to paint the ground floor and two staircases. He completed this commission in 1708.
The first of the two stamps depicts “The surrender of the Golden Fleece to Jason” (face value CHF 1.40), an obvious reference to the conferring of the Order of the Golden Fleece on Rottmayr’s client in 1693, and “Ariadne giving Theseus the thread” (face value CHF 1.00). Thank you my dear friend Maria for these two maxi cards, nay, Princely treasures.
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