1.
Dutch people
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The Dutch, occasionally referred to as Netherlanders—a term that is cognate to the Dutch word for Dutch people, Nederlanders—are a Germanic ethnic group native to the Netherlands. They share a culture and speak the Dutch language. The high degree of urbanization characteristic of Dutch society was attained at an early date. During the Republic the first series of large scale Dutch migrations outside of Europe took place, despite the small size of the Netherlands, the Dutch left behind a legacy in excess of their mere numbers. The traditional art and culture of the Dutch encompasses various forms of music, dances, architectural styles and clothing. Internationally, Dutch painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer and Van Gogh are held in high regard, the dominant religion of the Dutch is Christianity, although in modern times the majority is no longer religious. Significant percentages of the Dutch are adherents of humanism, agnosticism, atheism or individual spirituality, as with all ethnic groups the ethnogenesis of the Dutch has been a lengthy and complex process. The text below hence focuses on the history of the Dutch ethnic group, for Dutch national history, for Dutch colonial history, see the article on the Dutch Empire. Following the end of the period in the West around 500, with large federations settling the decaying Roman Empire. In the Low Countries, this began when the Franks, themselves a union of multiple smaller tribes. Eventually, in 358, the Salian Franks, one of the three main subdivisions among the Frankish alliance settled the areas Southern lands as foederati, Roman allies in charge of border defense. On a political level, the Frankish warlords abandoned tribalism and founded a number of kingdoms, however, the population make-up of the Frankish Empire, or even early Frankish kingdoms such as Neustria and Austrasia, was not dominated by Franks. Though the Frankish leaders controlled most of Western Europe, the Franks themselves were confined to the Northwestern part of the Empire, the current Dutch-French language border has remained virtually identical ever since, and could be seen as marking the furthest pale of gallicization among the Franks. The medieval cities of the Low Countries, which experienced major growth during the 11th and 12th century, were instrumental in breaking down the already relatively loose local form of feudalism, as they became increasingly powerful, they used their economical strength to influence the politics of their nobility. While the cities were of political importance, they also formed catalysts for medieval Dutch culture. The various city guilds as well as the necessity of water boards in the Dutch delta and it is also around this time, that ethnonyms such as Diets and Nederlands emerge. This process marked a new episode in the development of the Dutch ethnic group, as now political unity started to emerge, consolidating the strengthened cultural, despite their linguistic and cultural unity, and economic similarities, there was still little sense of political unity among the Dutch people. However, the centralist policies of Burgundy in the 14th and 15th centuries, at first violently opposed by the cities of the Low Countries, had a profound impact and changed this
2.
Sweden
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Sweden, officially the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and Finland to the east, at 450,295 square kilometres, Sweden is the third-largest country in the European Union by area, with a total population of 10.0 million. Sweden consequently has a low density of 22 inhabitants per square kilometre. Approximately 85% of the lives in urban areas. Germanic peoples have inhabited Sweden since prehistoric times, emerging into history as the Geats/Götar and Swedes/Svear, Southern Sweden is predominantly agricultural, while the north is heavily forested. Sweden is part of the area of Fennoscandia. The climate is in very mild for its northerly latitude due to significant maritime influence. Today, Sweden is a monarchy and parliamentary democracy, with a monarch as head of state. The capital city is Stockholm, which is also the most populous city in the country, legislative power is vested in the 349-member unicameral Riksdag. Executive power is exercised by the government chaired by the prime minister, Sweden is a unitary state, currently divided into 21 counties and 290 municipalities. Sweden emerged as an independent and unified country during the Middle Ages, in the 17th century, it expanded its territories to form the Swedish Empire, which became one of the great powers of Europe until the early 18th century. Swedish territories outside the Scandinavian Peninsula were gradually lost during the 18th and 19th centuries, the last war in which Sweden was directly involved was in 1814, when Norway was militarily forced into personal union. Since then, Sweden has been at peace, maintaining a policy of neutrality in foreign affairs. The union with Norway was peacefully dissolved in 1905, leading to Swedens current borders, though Sweden was formally neutral through both world wars, Sweden engaged in humanitarian efforts, such as taking in refugees from German-occupied Europe. After the end of the Cold War, Sweden joined the European Union on 1 January 1995 and it is also a member of the United Nations, the Nordic Council, Council of Europe, the World Trade Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Sweden maintains a Nordic social welfare system that provides health care. The modern name Sweden is derived through back-formation from Old English Swēoþēod and this word is derived from Sweon/Sweonas. The Swedish name Sverige literally means Realm of the Swedes, excluding the Geats in Götaland, the etymology of Swedes, and thus Sweden, is generally not agreed upon but may derive from Proto-Germanic Swihoniz meaning ones own, referring to ones own Germanic tribe
3.
Marie Antoinette
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Marie Antoinette (/ˈmæriˌæntwəˈnɛt/, /ˌɑ̃ːntwə-/, /ˌɑ̃ːtwə-/, US /məˈriː-/, French, born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, was the last Queen of France and Navarre before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria, and was the fifteenth and second youngest child of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, in April 1770, upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne, she became Dauphine of France. After eight years of marriage, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the Diamond Necklace affair damaged her reputation further. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the family to take refuge at the Assembly. On 21 September 1792, the monarchy was abolished, after a two-day trial begun on 14 October 1793, Marie Antoinette was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason, and executed by guillotine on Place de la Révolution on 16 October 1793. Maria Antonia was born on 2 November 1755, at the Hofburg Palace and she was the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Empire, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Her godparents were Joseph I and Mariana Victoria, King and Queen of Portugal, Archduke Joseph, shortly after her birth, she was placed under the care of the Governess of the Imperial children, Countess von Brandeis. Maria Antonia was raised with her older sister Maria Carolina. As to her relationship with her mother, it was difficult, despite the private tutoring she received, results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of ten she could not write correctly in German or in any language used at court, such as French. Under the teaching of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician and she learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. During the familys gatherings in the evenings, she would sing and she also excelled at dancing, had an exquisite poise, and loved dolls. Following the Seven Years War and the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, Empress Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, on 14 May she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compiègne. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name, a further ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the Palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The lack of consummation of the marriage plagued the reputation of both Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette for the seven years. The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste was mixed, on the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success, on the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria, and others, for personal reasons, had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette. Madame du Barry, for example, was Louis XVs mistress and had political influence over him
4.
Maria Theresa
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Maria Theresa Walburga Amalia Christina was the only female ruler of the Habsburg dominions and the last of the House of Habsburg. She was the sovereign of Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Bohemia, Transylvania, Mantua, Milan, Lodomeria and Galicia, by marriage, she was Duchess of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of Tuscany and Holy Roman Empress. She started her 40-year reign when her father, Emperor Charles VI, Charles VI paved the way for her accession with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 and spent his entire reign securing it. Upon the death of her father, Saxony, Prussia, Bavaria, Prussia proceeded to invade the affluent Habsburg province of Silesia, sparking a nine-year conflict known as the War of the Austrian Succession, and subsequently conquered it. Maria Theresa would later try to reconquer Silesia during the Seven Years War. Of the sixteen, ten survived to adulthood and she had eleven daughters and five sons. She criticised and disapproved of many of Josephs actions, Maria Theresa understood the importance of her public persona and was able to simultaneously evoke both esteem and affection from her subjects. However, she refused to allow religious toleration and contemporary travelers thought her regime was bigoted and superstitious. As a young monarch who fought two wars, she believed that her cause should be the cause of her subjects. The dowager empresses, her aunt Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg and grandmother Eleonor Magdalene of the Palatinate-Neuburg, were her godmothers and her father was the only surviving male member of the House of Habsburg and hoped for a son who would prevent the extinction of his dynasty and succeed him. Thus, the birth of Maria Theresa was a disappointment to him. Charles sought the other European powers approval for disinheriting his nieces and they exacted harsh terms, in the Treaty of Vienna, Great Britain demanded that Austria abolish the Ostend Company in return for its recognition of the Pragmatic Sanction. France, Spain, Saxony-Poland, Bavaria and Prussia later reneged, little more than a year after her birth, Maria Theresa was joined by a sister, Maria Anna, and another one, named Maria Amalia, was born in 1724. The portraits of the family show that Maria Theresa resembled Elisabeth Christine. The Prussian ambassador noted that she had blue eyes, fair hair with a slight tinge of red, a wide mouth. Unlike many other members of the House of Habsburg, neither Maria Theresas parents nor her grandparents were closely related to each other, Maria Theresa was a serious and reserved child who enjoyed singing and archery. She was barred from riding by her father, but she would later learn the basics for the sake of her Hungarian coronation ceremony. The imperial family staged opera productions, often conducted by Charles VI and her education was overseen by Jesuits
5.
Stockholm
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The city is spread across 14 islands on the coast in the southeast of Sweden at the mouth of Lake Mälaren, by the Stockholm archipelago and the Baltic Sea. The area has settled since the Stone Age, in the 6th millennium BC. It is also the capital of Stockholm County, Stockholm is the cultural, media, political, and economic centre of Sweden. The Stockholm region alone accounts for over a third of the countrys GDP and it is an important global city, and the main centre for corporate headquarters in the Nordic region. The city is home to some of Europes top ranking universities, such as the Stockholm School of Economics, Karolinska Institute and it hosts the annual Nobel Prize ceremonies and banquet at the Stockholm Concert Hall and Stockholm City Hall. One of the citys most prized museums, the Vasa Museum, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. The Stockholm metro, opened in 1950, is known for its decoration of the stations. Swedens national football arena is located north of the city centre, Ericsson Globe, the national indoor arena, is in the southern part of the city. The city was the host of the 1912 Summer Olympics, and hosted the equestrian portion of the 1956 Summer Olympics otherwise held in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Stockholm is the seat of the Swedish government and most of its agencies, including the highest courts in the judiciary, and the official residencies of the Swedish monarch and the Prime Minister. The government has its seat in the Rosenbad building, the Riksdag is seated in the Parliament House, and the Prime Ministers residence is adjacent at the Sager House. After the Ice Age, around 8,000 BCE, there were already a number of people living in the present-day Stockholm area. Thousands of years later, as the ground thawed, the climate became tolerable, at the intersection of the Baltic Sea and lake Mälaren is an archipelago site where the Old Town of Stockholm was first built from about 1000 CE by Vikings. They had a positive impact on the area because of the trade routes they created. Stockholms location appears in Norse sagas as Agnafit, and in Heimskringla in connection with the legendary king Agne, the earliest written mention of the name Stockholm dates from 1252, by which time the mines in Bergslagen made it an important site in the iron trade. The first part of the name means log in Swedish, although it may also be connected to an old German word meaning fortification, the second part of the name means islet, and is thought to refer to the islet Helgeandsholmen in central Stockholm. Stockholms core, the present Old Town was built on the island next to Helgeandsholmen from the mid 13th century onward. The city originally rose to prominence as a result of the Baltic trade of the Hanseatic League, Stockholm developed strong economic and cultural linkages with Lübeck, Hamburg, Gdańsk, Visby, Reval, and Riga during this time
6.
The Hague
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The Hague is a city on the western coast of the Netherlands, and the capital city of the province of South Holland. With a population of 520,704 inhabitants and more than one million including the suburbs, it is the third-largest city of the Netherlands. The Rotterdam The Hague Metropolitan Area, with a population of approximately 2.7 million, is the 12th-largest in the European Union and the most populous in the country. Located in the west of the Netherlands, The Hague is in the centre of the Haaglanden conurbation and lies at the southwest corner of the larger Randstad conurbation. The Hague is the seat of the Dutch government, parliament, the Supreme Court, and the Council of State, but the city is not the capital of the Netherlands, which constitutionally is Amsterdam. King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands plans to live at Huis ten Bosch and works at Noordeinde Palace in The Hague, the Hague is also home to the world headquarters of Royal Dutch Shell and numerous other major Dutch companies. The Hague originated around 1230, when Count Floris IV of Holland purchased land alongside a pond, in 1248, his son and successor William II, King of the Romans, decided to extend the residence to a palace, which would later be called the Binnenhof. He died in 1256 before this palace was completed but parts of it were finished by his son Floris V, of which the Ridderzaal and it is still used for political events, such as the annual speech from the throne by the Dutch monarch. From the 13th century onwards, the counts of Holland used The Hague as their administrative centre, the village that originated around the Binnenhof was first mentioned as Haga in a charter dating from 1242. In the 15th century, the smarter des Graven hage came into use, literally The Counts Wood, with connotations like The Counts Hedge, s-Gravenhage was officially used for the city from the 17th century onwards. Today, this name is used in some official documents like birth. The city itself uses Den Haag in all its communication and their seat was located in The Hague. At the beginning of the Eighty Years War, the absence of city walls proved disastrous, in 1575, the States of Holland even considered demolishing the city but this proposal was abandoned, after mediation by William of Orange. From 1588, The Hague also became the seat of the government of the Dutch Republic, in order for the administration to maintain control over city matters, The Hague never received official city status, although it did have many of the privileges normally granted only to cities. In modern administrative law, city rights have no place anymore, only in 1806, when the Kingdom of Holland was a puppet state of the First French Empire, was the settlement granted city rights by Louis Bonaparte. After the Napoleonic Wars, modern-day Belgium and the Netherlands were combined in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands to form a buffer against France, as a compromise, Brussels and Amsterdam alternated as capital every two years, with the government remaining in The Hague. After the separation of Belgium in 1830, Amsterdam remained the capital of the Netherlands, when the government started to play a more prominent role in Dutch society after 1850, The Hague quickly expanded. The growing city annexed the rural municipality of Loosduinen partly in 1903, the city sustained heavy damage during World War II
7.
Franz Xaver Messerschmidt
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Franz Xaver Messerschmidt was a German-Austrian sculptor most famous for his character heads, a collection of busts with faces contorted in extreme facial expressions. Born February 6th 1736 in the town of Wiesensteig, located in the region of the Swabian Jura Germany. Messerschmidt grew up in the Munich home of his uncle, the sculptor Johann Baptist Straub and he spent two years in Graz, in the workshop of his other maternal uncle, the sculptor Philipp Jakob Straub. At the end of 1755 he matriculated at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, graduated, he got work at the imperial arms collection. Here, in the salon in 1760-63 he made his first known works of art. With these works he joined the Late Baroque art of courtly representation, to this trend belong two other, larger than lifesize tin statues representing the imperial couple, commissioned by Maria Theresa of Austria and executed between 1764 and 1766. Besides some other portraits he made works with a religious subject. A number of statues commissioned by the Princess of Savoy have survived as well, the Baroque period of his oeuvre ended in 1769 with a bust of the court physician Gerard van Swieten, commissioned by the Empress. At the same time his first early Neo-Classic works appeared, made—characteristically—for the Academy, to these and later works he applied many experiences gained in 1765 during a study trip to Rome. One of these early, severe heads from the years 1769-70, Messerschmidt found himself increasingly at odds with his milieu. In a letter to the Empress, Count Kaunitz praised Messerschmidts abilities, but suggested that the nature of his illness would make such an appointment detrimental to the institution. )Bitter, he left Vienna, moved to his village, Wiesensteig. Here he waited two years for a commission and for a permanent employment at the Court. In 1777 he went to Pressburg where his brother, Johann Adam worked as a sculptor, here he spent the last six years of his life almost in retirement, on the outskirts of the town. He dedicated himself primarily to his character heads, in 1781, German author Friedrich Nicolai visited Messerschmidt at his studio in Pressburg and subsequently published a transcript of their conversation. Nicolais account of the meeting is a resource, as it is the only contemporary document that details Messerschmidts reasoning behind the execution of his character heads. It appears that for many years Messerschmidt had been suffering from a digestive complaint, now believed to be Crohns disease. In order to focus his thoughts away from his condition, Messerschmidt devised a series of pinches he administered to his right lower rib, observing the resulting facial expressions in a mirror, Messerschmidt then set about recording them in marble and bronze. His intention, he told Nicolai, was to represent the 64 canonical grimaces of the face using himself as a template
8.
Princess Isabella of Parma
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Isabella of Parma was the daughter of Infante Felipe of Spain, Duke of Parma and his wife Louise Elisabeth, eldest daughter of Louis XV of France and Maria Leszczyńska. Her paternal grandparents were Philip V of Spain and his second wife and her father was the Spanish Prince Philip, who was Duke of Parma in Italy. Her mother was the 14 year old Elisabeth of France, the eldest daughter of Louis XV of France, Isabellas parents marriage was not happy, and for nearly 10 years Isabella remained an only child. Isabella was very close to her mother and was distraught when she died of smallpox in 1759, henceforth, Isabella was convinced she would die young, too. In 1760 a marriage was arranged between Isabella and Archduke Joseph of Austria, heir to the Habsburg Monarchy, after a marriage by proxy, Isabella was escorted to Austria. On 6 October 1760, at the age of 18, Isabella married Joseph II in a ceremony lasting for days, Joseph was thrilled with his new bride and overwhelmed Isabella with his love. In return, she locked herself away, so much so that shortly after their wedding. The princess spent most of her time in the Viennese court, not with her husband, but with his sister, Archduchess Maria Christina, the two women loved each other deeply. During the few years Isabella and Christina knew each other, they exchanged 200 letters and they spent so much time together that they earned the comparison with Orpheus and Eurydice. Isabel and Maria were united not only by a shared interest in music and art, every day they wrote long letters to each other in which they revealed their feelings of love. In one such letter, Isabella wrote, I am writing you again, cruel sister, I cannot bear waiting to know my fate, and to learn whether you consider me a person worthy of your love, or whether you would like to throw me into the river. I can think of nothing but that I am deeply in love, if I only knew why this is so, for you are so without mercy that one should not love you, but I cannot help myself. In a different letter she wrote, I am told that the day begins with God, I, however, begin the day by thinking of the object of my love, for I think of her incessantly. Only the letters of Isabella have been preserved, those of Maria Christina were destroyed after her death, however, as wife of the heir to the throne, Isabella knew that her duty was to give birth to a healthy heir. Despite this, the princess developed disquieted feelings toward her husband, spurred by anxieties over sexual intimacy, by late 1761, one year into the marriage, Isabella was pregnant. On March 20,1762, after nine months of mental and physical strain, Isabella remained bedridden for 6 weeks after giving birth. In August 1762 and January 1763 Isabella suffered two separate miscarriages that aggravated her mental unrest, causing her to fall into a depression that eroded her will to live, in 1763, Isabella was six months pregnant with a baby girl when she contracted smallpox. On 22 November of the year, this brought on premature labor ending in the death of the child, who was given the name Maria Christina
9.
Hofburg
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The Hofburg is the former imperial palace in the centre of Vienna, Austria. It was the principal winter residence, as Schönbrunn Palace was the summer residence. Since 1279 the Hofburg area has been the seat of government. The Hofburg has been expanded over the centuries to various residences, the imperial chapel, the imperial library, the treasury, the Burgtheater, the Spanish Riding School. The palace faces the Heldenplatz ordered under the reign of Emperor Francis Joseph I, as part of what was planned to become the Kaiserforum, the name translates as Royal Castle, which denotes its origins when it was initially constructed during the Medieval Age. Initially constructed as the seat of the Dukes of Austria in the 13th century, from 1438 to 1583 and from 1612 to 1806, it was the seat of the Habsburg kings and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, thereafter the seat of the Emperor of Austria until 1918. It has continued its role as the seat of the head of state and is used by the Austrian Federal President. It is also the permanent conference seat of the Organization for Security, presently the Burghauptmannschaft is under the jurisdiction of the Federal Ministry of Economy. In September 1958 parts of the Hofburg were opened to the public as a convention centre, in the first ten years the Burghauptmannschaft operated the convention centre, since 1969 a private company has been managing the international congress and events center. Every year the centre hosts about 300 to 350 events with around 300,000 to 320,000 guests. Among the events are conventions and meetings as well as banquets, trade fairs, concerts, the oldest sections originate from the 13th century and were primarily constructed by the last of the Babenbergers or by Ottakar II of Bohemia. Previously the castle of the Austrian rulers had been located on the square called Am Hof, the castle had a square-shaped outline with four turrets, surrounded by a moat and a drawbridge that led to the inside. These oldest sections of the castle form the Swiss Court. There situated are a chapel, from the 15th century, and the treasury, which holds, among other objects, the imperial insignia of the Holy Roman Empire. The Court Music Chapel is located in the Court Chapel and this is where the Vienna Boys Choir traditionally sing for Sunday mass. The appearance of the Swiss Court was given during the reign of Emperor Ferdinand I during the Renaissance, the entry Swiss Gate displays the many titles of Emperor Ferdinand I and the insignia of the Order of the Golden Fleece painted on the ceiling. An adjoining section of the Swiss Wing houses the Radetzky Apartments, next to the Knights Hall is the Guard Room, where the duty officer of the Household Guards kept watch over the emperor. The lower section of this wing once accommodated the imperial kitchen, although not physically connected to the rest of the complex, the imperial mews of the Hofburg were originally built as a residence for the then crown prince Maximilian II
10.
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor
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Joseph II was Holy Roman Emperor from 1765 to 1790 and ruler of the Habsburg lands from 1780 to 1790. He was the eldest son of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Francis I and he was thus the first ruler in the Austrian dominions of the House of Lorraine, styled Habsburg-Lorraine. He has been ranked, with Catherine the Great of Russia and Frederick the Great of Prussia and his policies are now known as Josephinism. He died with no sons and was succeeded by his younger brother, Joseph was born in the midst of the early upheavals of the War of the Austrian Succession. His real education was given to him through the writings of Voltaire and the Encyclopédistes and he married Princess Isabella of Parma in October 1760, a union fashioned to bolster the 1756 defensive pact between France and Austria. Joseph loved his bride, Isabella, finding her both stimulating and charming, and she sought, with care to cultivate his favor. The marriage of Joseph and Isabella resulted in the birth of a daughter, Isabella was fearful of pregnancy and early death. Her own pregnancy proved difficult as she suffered symptoms of pain, illness. She remained bedridden for six weeks after their daughters birth, almost immediately on the back of their newfound parenthood, the couple then endured two consecutive miscarriages—an ordeal particularly hard on Isabella—followed quickly by another pregnancy. Pregnancy was again provoking melancholy, fears and dread in Isabella, progressively ill with smallpox and strained by sudden childbirth and tragedy, Isabella died the following week. This marriage proved unhappy, albeit brief, as it lasted only two years. Though Maria Josepha loved her husband, she felt timid and inferior in his company, lacking common interests or pleasures, the relationship offered little for Joseph, who confessed he felt no love for her in return. He adapted by distancing himself from his wife to the point of near total avoidance, seeing her only at meals, Maria Josepha, in turn, suffered considerable misery in finding herself locked in a cold, loveless union. Four months after the anniversary of their wedding, Maria Josepha grew ill. Joseph neither visited her during her illness nor attended her funeral, though he expressed regret for not having shown her better kindness. One thing the union did provide him was the possibility of laying claim to a portion of Bavaria. In 1770, at the age of seven, Josephs only surviving child, Maria Theresa, became ill with pleurisy, the loss of his daughter was deeply traumatic for him and left him profoundly grief-stricken and scarred. He was made a member of the council of state
11.
Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor
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Francis I was Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany, though his wife effectively executed the real powers of those positions. With his wife, Maria Theresa, he was the founder of the Habsburg-Lorraine dynasty, from 1728 until 1737 he was Duke of Lorraine. In 1737, Lorraine became managed by France under terms resulting from the War of the Polish Succession, Francis and the House of Lorraine received the Grand Duchy of Tuscany in the peace treaty that ended that war. Francis was born in Nancy, Lorraine, the oldest surviving son of Leopold, Duke of Lorraine and he was connected with the Habsburgs through his grandmother Eleonor, daughter of Emperor Ferdinand III. He was very close to his brother and sister Anne Charlotte, Emperor Charles VI favored the family, who, besides being his cousins, had served the house of Austria with distinction. He had designed to marry his daughter Maria Theresa to Francis older brother Leopold Clement, on Leopold Clements death, Charles adopted the younger brother as his future son-in-law. Francis was brought up in Vienna with Maria Theresa with the understanding that they were to be married, and a real affection arose between them. At the age of 15, when he was brought to Vienna, he was established in the Silesian Duchy of Teschen, Francis succeeded his father as Duke of Lorraine in 1729. In 1731 he was initiated into freemasonry by John Theophilus Desaguliers at a specially convened lodge in The Hague at the house of the British Ambassador, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield. During a subsequent visit to England, Francis was made a Master Mason at another specially convened lodge at Houghton Hall, Maria Theresa arranged for Francis to become Lord Lieutenant of Hungary in 1732. He was not excited about this position, but Maria Theresa wanted him closer to her, in June 1732 he agreed to go to Pressburg. A preliminary peace was concluded in October 1735 and ratified in the Treaty of Vienna in November 1738, in March 1736 the Emperor persuaded Francis, his future son-in-law, to secretly exchange Lorraine for the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. France had demanded that Maria Theresas fiancé surrender his ancestral Duchy of Lorraine to accommodate the deposed King of Poland, the Emperor considered other possibilities before announcing the engagement of the couple. If something were to go wrong, Francis would become governor of the Austrian Netherlands, as a result, Elisabeth sons could claim by right of being a descendant of Margherita. On January 31,1736 Francis had agreed to marry Maria Theresa, especially his mother Élisabeth Charlotte dOrléans and his brother Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine were against the loss of Lorraine. On February 1, Maria Theresa sent Francis a letter, she would withdraw from her future reign and they married on 12 February in the Augustinian Church, Vienna. The wedding was held on February 14,1736, the treaty between the Emperor and Francis was signed on 4 May 1736. In January 1737, the Spanish troops withdrew from Tuscany, and were replaced by 6,000 Austrians, on 24 January 1737 Francis received Tuscany from his father-in-law
12.
Martin Mijtens the Elder
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Peter Martin Mijtens the Elder, also spelled Meytens or Mytens was a Dutch painter who worked in Sweden. His father, Isaac, and son, Martin, known as The Younger, were painters, as were his uncle Daniel, and his cousins Daniel. He went to Stockholm with his older brother Dietrich around 1677 and his earliest works were very simple, compared with David Klöcker Ehrenstrahl, the most popular portrait painter at that time. To maintain his clientele, Mijtens works gradually became more colorful and dramatic, many of his paintings were left unsigned, which has often led to them being confused with Ehrenstrahls work, although certain small stylistic differences can be perceived. Despite the competition from Ehrenstrahl and his nephew David von Krafft and he had several students, including Georg Desmarées and Lukas von Breda. He also trained his son, who went to Vienna. He apparently suffered from some sort of senility or insanity in his later years, after his death, his collection was sold to Count Gustav Adolf von Gotter, a Prussian diplomat. Later, much of it came into the possession of Charles Eugene, carl Gustaf Tessin called him an old paint-spoiler. He was essentially forgotten until 1841, when his work was reevaluated by Nils Arfwidsson, a literary and art critic who wrote him in Frey. Boo von Malmborg, Martin van Meytens d. a, - En konstnär från Sveriges storhetstid Malmö, Allhems förlag Self-portrait of Mijtens @ the Östergötlands County Museum
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Media related to Martin van Meytens at Wikimedia Commons
