Porcelain Room from the Palais Dubsky in Brno

Around 1700 the designing of so-called “porcelain cabinets” became fashionable in Europe. At first craftsmen only had European faience at their disposal, but this was gradually replaced by Chinese exports and, from 1700 onwards, by Japanese porcelain. The porcelain room from the Palais Dubsky in Brno is one of the first rooms to have been decorated with European porcelain. From the coat of arms of the Czobor of Szent-Mihály positioned above the pier glass, the room fixtures can be traced back to the years after 1724. At that time Countess Maria Antonia of Czobor, Frau auf Göding, née Princess of Liechtenstein, purchased the Palais, later to be called Palais Dubsky, in Brno. Also derived from this period is the porcelain, manufactured by the Viennese firm of Du Paquier (1718–1744). Examinations of the fixed wall panelings of the room, along with the fact that in Brno the fireplace was built into the wall without a flue and was therefore not usable, have nevertheless shown that the fixtures must have been intended for another as yet unknown location and were adapted later to fit the smaller dimensions in the Brno Palais. However, the temporal discrepancy between the early Viennese porcelain, created before 1730, and the ornamentation of the wall panels and part of the furniture, which are datable at the earliest to the 1740s, has hitherto remained unclarified. In 1745 the ownership of the Palais passed into the possession of Johann Georg of Piati, and was then inherited by his son Emanuel Piati of Tirnowitz in 1762. The coat of arms of this family was originally painted in oil over that of Czobor and only removed in 1912 when the room was acquired by the museum. The pictorial decoration of the room also derives from the Piati period, around 1790, as does the wall clock, signed by the Brno clockmaker Sebastian Kurz. It eventually received its present name from the marriage of Emanuela of Piati, the daughter of Johann Georg, to Franz Dubsky of Trebomyslic in 1805. As can be deduced from later additions of porcelain from the Herend Porcelain Factory (founded 1839) and pieces from the Viennese Porcelain Manufactory dated 1847, major restoration and re-adaptation of the room must have been engaged in around 1850. It is highly probable that the seating furniture, the consoletable from the long wall and the couch table derive from this period as well.