38: Princess Margarete of Thurn and Taxis, a lady with many talents

Princess Margarete of Thurn and Taxis, Archduchess of Austria, was both close to nature as well as artistically talented. Princess Gabriela recounts: “Already as a teenager my great-grandmother Margarete is said to have shown great talent in painting. That is why her father, Archduke Joseph Carl of Austria, had her take painting lessons with Olga Wisinger-Florian. In 1903 Margit, as she signed her paintings, published the “Atlas of Medicinal Plants of the Prelate Kneipp” with 186 coloured plant panels. Princess Margarete continued to cultivate her passion for painting into her old age despite her regular assignments as a surgical nurse in the Regensburg children’s hospital.

I remember that as a small child I was allowed to go to her studio and was amazed at what she had collected for study purposes. I was particularly fascinated by the skeleton of a horse standing in the middle of the room.”

Matching the natural history collections of earlier times is the contemporary art installation of glasses with turquoise blue lacquer caps, in which the artist Anja Schindler, a close friend of the family, preserves all kinds of objects she discovered in nature.