by InTrieste
Interview: Andreina Contessa, director of the Miramare Museum
In a quiet but poignant moment for European art lovers, Miramare Castle in Trieste unveiled today a small yet symbolically powerful exhibition: “Ritorni. Le opere di Massimiliano d’Asburgo restituite alla collezione di Miramare” — “Returns. The Works of Maximilian of Habsburg Reunited with the Miramare Collection.”
Four 17th-century paintings, once part of the original core of Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian of Habsburg’s personal collection, have been reinstalled in the castle’s Sala Rosa dei Venti (Rose Room of the Winds), following decades in storage. Their quiet return marks a significant moment for the museum and for those devoted to preserving the full story of the ill-fated archduke — brother to Emperor Franz Joseph I and the would-be Emperor of Mexico.
“This is a long-awaited and much-desired operation,” said Andreina Contessa, director of the Miramare Museum, who spearheaded the initiative. “It allows us to maintain the integrity of the original collection and, in doing so, to better understand Maximilian’s personal taste and intellectual curiosity.”
The four paintings, dated to the mid-1600s, were housed for years in the storerooms of Italy’s Soprintendenza — the state agency for cultural heritage — and have now been returned thanks to a collaboration between the museum and regional heritage officials. Contessa specifically thanked Valentina Minosi, regional superintendent, and Claudia Crosera, an art historian with the SAPAB FVG, for facilitating the delicate operation.
More than an act of simple restitution, the reintegration of the works contributes to what Contessa called “a parallel narrative of Maximilian’s life” — one that complements the more familiar historical account of his tragic end before a Mexican firing squad in 1867. “This story concerns his passion for science, for travel, for photography and botany,” she said, gesturing toward the layered complexity of a man often remembered solely through the lens of political failure.
Miramare Castle, perched dramatically above the Gulf of Trieste, was designed by Maximilian himself as a refuge of beauty and intellect — a place to house not just art, but ideas. With today’s unveiling, a small but vital piece of that vision has come home.
