Das kaiserliche Lustschloß Schönbrunn, Gartenseite

Das kaiserliche Lustschloß Schönbrunn, Gartenseite (The Imperial Pleasure Palace Schönbrunn, Garden Side), painted in 1758 and held by the Kunsthistorisches Museum, documents the garden facade of the Habsburg's summer residence at the height of Maria Theresa's reign — when the palace had just been enlarged and redecorated by Nikolaus Pacassi into the form it essentially retains today. Schönbrunn's garden facade is one of the defining images of European Baroque-Rococo court architecture, its warm ochre stucco and white articulation rising above the formal French gardens that extended from the terrace toward the Gloriette hill beyond. Bellotto's documentation of this facade is among the most famous of all his Vienna views, precisely because the subject — the Habsburg's principal domestic palace — was the most prestigious available to him within the commission. The Gloriette, visible on the hilltop behind the palace in this view, was completed only in 1775, so Bellotto shows the hilltop as it appeared before the monument was built — yet another historically invaluable snapshot of a site in transition.

The Schönbrunn facade's vast scale requires Bellotto to work at a smaller compositional scale for individual architectural elements than in his more compact street views, but the perspective construction remains precise. The warm ochre-yellow stucco of Schönbrunn is rendered in a consistent golden tone that the Kunsthistorisches Museum's conservation records confirm is close to the original historic colour. The formal garden parterre below the terrace is documented in bird's-eye perspective, its geometric patterns individually rendered.