Owing to ongoing restoration work, the Large Antechamber is not currently included in tours of the palace.

The apartments of Empress Elisabeth were originally accessed via the Eagle Staircase connecting the Leopoldine Wing and the Amalienburg. When the Presidential Chancellery was installed in the Leopoldine Wing in 1946, this access to the imperial apartments was walled up. The paintings that hang in this room take us back to the eighteenth century, to the time of Maria Theresa, the great-great-grandmother of Franz Joseph. She reigned from 1740 to 1780 and was married to Franz Stephan of Lorraine, who from 1745 was the elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, taking the title of Franz I. The couple had sixteen children, of whom ten survived into adulthood. The four paintings on display here show some of Maria Theresa’s children taking part in theatrical performances. In general, the imperial couple’s children were encouraged to make music, dance or act on the occasion of various family celebrations such as birthdays, name days and weddings.

The painting between the windows shows a scene with Maria Theresa’s three youngest offspring – Ferdinand, Maria Antonia (later the French queen Marie Antoinette), and Maximilian – from the pastoral ballet Le Triomphe de l’Amour by Pietro Metastasio and Florian Leopold Gassmann, performed on the occasion of the second marriage of their eldest brother, Emperor Joseph II, to Josepha of Bavaria in January 1765.

The painting opposite shows the older sisters singing and dancing in the operetta Il parnasso confuso. Maria Josepha, Maria Elisabeth, Maria Amalia and Maria Karolina represent Apollo and three Muses. The music was composed by Christoph Willibald Gluck to a libretto by Pietro Metastasio.

The plays shown in the other two paintings have not yet been identified. The picture on the right depicts the eldest of Maria Theresa’s children, including the later emperor Joseph II.