Vol. XXXV · 2004

Michael E. Yonan

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THE AUSTRIAN HABSBURG COURT under Empress Maria Theresa has been characterized as combining an informal domesticity with a rigid ceremonial structure inherited from her predecessors. In this picture of life at the Habsburg court, the strict protocol and elaborate calendar of ceremoniesonly partially designated how the imperial family structured its time; protocol and ceremony coexisted, it would seem, with more casual and relaxed forms of familial interaction. Popular Austrian writing on Maria Theresa has stressed the image of the empress as mother, and the maternal quality of this portrait has colored some modern notions of how her palaces were occupied and used. Tourists visiting Schönbrunn palace, for example, are often told that many of its rooms were designed with familial contact in mind, and the resulting picture of the palace's use and habitation is curiously modern.