The 19th Century

In 1789, Eggenberg passed by inheritance to the older main branch of the family, the Imperial Counts of Herberstein, whose main residence was far away in Silesia, meaning that they visited Eggenberg for only a few weeks a year. It is true that in the early 19th century, Johann Hieronymus Count Herberstein had the formal Baroque garden laid out as an English landscape garden in line with the tastes of the time, but the State Rooms were left completely untouched. Seen as old-fashioned, visitors were only infrequently able to marvel at its wonders in the company of the Palace’s castellan, and so the rooms fell into a deep and lasting slumber over a period of a hundred years. The first inventory, dating from the 18th century, and the first photographs, taken circa 1900, provide an almost identical glimpse of the building’s historic interior.  From today’s perspective, it was a particular stroke of luck that the fittings and décor survived this long period of hiatus.

Only the family’s living quarters on the piano nobile were altered on several occasions after 1850 to meet modern requirements.