Maria-Theresien-Schlössel, Baroque castle and bank museum in Währing, Austria.
Maria-Theresien-Schlössel is a white single-story Baroque castle in Vienna's Währing district, marked by carefully furnished rooms with original wall paintings. A central hall featuring a dolphin fountain serves as the heart of the interior and now functions as a banking museum.
The castle was built in 1774 as a hunting lodge for Empress Maria Theresa and served as her private retreat during her reign. Following the Habsburg era, Erste Bank acquired it and converted it into a museum documenting banking history.
The building reflects Habsburg tastes in elegant design, with rooms showing how wealthy families lived in the 1700s. The furnishings and decorations reveal a lifestyle split between city and countryside, where the nobility sought both leisure and retreat.
The museum is located at Gersthofer Straße 143 and is easily accessible by public transport. Visitors should wear sturdy shoes, as the rooms are spread across multiple levels with some narrow staircases.
The walls of the upper floor display illusionistic paintings that make rooms appear larger than they actually are. This trompe-l'oeil technique was a favorite trick of Baroque artists to make modest hunting lodges look more grand.
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