The State Hermitage Museum: Exhibitions

Equestrian Portrait of Franz I (1768-1835)

Peter Johann Krafft

1832

Oil on canvas

Emperor Francis I of Austria is depicted in this portrait created for the War Gallery of 1812 in the Winter Palace in the uniform of an Austrian field marshal. He wears his country's orders of the Golden Fleece, Maria Theresa, Leopold and the Iron Crown.

Francis I (1768-1835) was the first Emperor of Austria and (under the name Francis II) the last of the Holy Roman Emperors. The son of Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Maria Louisa of Spain. During his father's brief reign in the Hapsburg lands (as Leopold II, 1790-92), Francis was actively involved in the administration of the state. After his father's death, Francis inherited the Hapsburg dominions and in 1792 he was elected Holy Roman Emperor. Francis entered the coalition against Napoleon and the wars against France substantially undermined the foundations of his power. In a series of peace treaties he was obliged to hand over the richest of his provinces: Belgium, Lombardy, the Tyrol, Trieste, Krajina and Western Galicia. In 1804 Francis proclaimed himself hereditary Emperor of Austria. Two years later he renounced the title of Holy Roman Emperor, having acknowledged Napoleon's dominion in Germany.

Austria and Russia played the main role in the third anti-French coalition whose forces were smashed in 1805 at the Battles of Ulm and Austerlitz. The revenge that the Austrians sought in the fifth coalition with the backing of Britain's financial support did not come about: in 1809 their forces were defeated at Eckmuhl and Wagram.

After those defeats the Austrian Chancellor Prince Metternich persuaded Francis to conclude and an alliance with Napoleon and to offer the French ruler the hand of his daughter Marie Louise. Their wedding took place in 1810. In 1812 the French Emperor forced Austria and Prussia to sign treaties that obliged those countries to provide military contingents to assist the French forces. In 1813, when the inevitability of Napoleon's fall became obvious, Francis broke with his son-in-law and that enabled him to take part in the final military operations against France. Under the peace treaty concluded at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the Emperor recovered his lost possessions, but gave up Belgium in return for additional territory in Italy.