interno

The Palace

The Dining Room

The room is dominated by the large, richly set table, which conceals an old billiard table, now covered with a sheet of glass, originating from Kromberk Castle. This mid-nineteenth-century English table service, produced by the firm Charles Meigh & Sons, is made of Stone China, an English variant of faÏence, which was also popular among the aristocracy as an alternative to porcelain. 

The cutlery belongs to a set of no fewer than 223 pieces, made in St. Petersburg around the middle of the 19th century in elaborate neo-Rococo forms. Completing the table decor are a pair of three-armed candlesticks, in the shape of a vine branch with vine shoots and bunches, and the three-basket épergne centrepiece, made of silver-plated metal, produced by the Birmingham firm Elkington & Co.

Standing out in the centre of the wall behind the table is a fine 17th century landscape on wood panel, Windmills before a storm, which echoes the style of the Dutch artist Jacob van Ruysdael (1628-1682). 

On the sides are portraits of Emperor Ferdinand II of Habsburg and his first wife, Maria Anna of Bavaria, by the painter Giovanni Pietro de' Pomis (1569-1633).

The painting above the fireplace, purchased in Florence by Guglielmo Coronini in 1927, is a late copy of a work by Flemish painter Quentin Metsys, Tax Collectors, while the back wall is dominated by a large hunting scene with dogs and swans, a pictorial genre that had established itself in the 17th century thanks to Flemish artist Franz Snyders, who was employed in Rubens' workshop.

On the chest below rests a silver sculpture depicting a hunting scene in seventeenth-century dress, made in 1864 by the firm Garrard & Co. of London, one of the main suppliers to the English royal house. On the sides are two 18th-century Venetian Moors in carved, painted and gilded wood.

On the opposite side, next to the door is a small German coin cabinet from the 17th century, decorated with ivory plates engraved with hunting scenes.