In the past the “Princely Treasures” series has illustrated valuable exhibits from the Liechtenstein Museum in Vienna, which since 2012 has no longer been open to the public as it was formerly and is now operated under the name “Garden Palace”.

Together with the “Stadtpalais” palace on Bankgasse in Vienna’s city centre which likewise belongs to the princely family of Liechtenstein the Garden Palace in Rossau has for over 300 years been firmly embedded in the history of the Austrian capital. After some four years’ renovation work the Stadtpalais too has since April 2013 again been resplendent in all its former glory. Magnificent state apartments and exquisite masterpieces from the Princely Collections dating from the age of classicism and Biedermeier now attract the visitor. Baroque stuccoed ceilings combine with the sumptuous neo-rococo interior, the original furniture and refined parquetry floors by the German master joiner Michael Thonet (1796- 1871) to form a harmonious whole, providing insights into 300 years of art and architectural history. These treasures include ceiling panels by the Italian rococo painter Antonio Bellucci (1654–1726) which were a feature of the Garden Palace for 200 years. One of the two ceiling panels, Bellucci’s “Time unveiling the Truth”, is now in the socalled Small Courbaril Room. Like most of the Stadtpalais’s state apartments this room, which takes its name from the wood of the animé tree (Hymenaea courbaril), has been furnished with painstakingly restored and partially re-woven silken wall-coverings. The commemorative sheetlet designed by HP Gassner with the three stamps “Silk wall-covering left” (face value CHF 1.00), “Silk wallcovering centre” (face value CHF 1.40) and “Silk wall-covering right” (face value CHF 3.60) depicts sections of the floral pattern on the wall-covering in this room. They have been applied in gold to real silk by a combination of offset printing, elaborate embossing and hot-foil stamping.