This publication analyses in different case studies the strategies of representation of the Habsburg-
Lorraine dynasty in art and music. It is divided into four thematic sections themes and media of
representation, ruler, state and nation, networks and, finally, ceremonial spaces in relationship to the
various publics containing exemplary studies, which offer a broad overview of the production of
the crown lands. The publication focusses on the way in which in the hereditary Habsburg territories,
the Bohemian lands and Hungary specific strategies of representation were expressed in music and art.
The methodological framework is the key issue of the communication of representation in each of the
media involved (photography, prints, public monuments, paintings, architecture, libretti, church music
and others), every representative content being dependent on the medium employed as carrier.
Borrowings from and transmissions into other contexts, transformations, breaks in communication and
also trans-European courtly conventions as expressed in music and art are also examined in the
collected studies. Not only the complex networks of the decision makers, but also the up to now
almost untouched wealth of pictorial and musical sources are examined. This broad basis in content
and method makes it possible to re-examine both the autonomous character of the media used by
different social groups, a theme not adequately addressed by research before, and also the use of
representation on different occasions (celebration, courtly ceremony, collecting activities, entries and
others). The complex relations between senders and recipients among the actors involved are
comprehensively scrutinised. Those bodies responsible for representation include not only the court,
but also the different social groups (nobility, clergy, local authorities etc.), which served as the
primary addressees of the dynasty, but which could also develop their own strategies of representation.
Representation thus takes place in a tension between activities from above and from below. In an
attempt at a general characterisation it can be said that representation is not an established and
unchangeable quality of itself, but, instead, is subjected to diverse processes of social and medial
negotiation, the analysis of which is an important contribution to research into the structure of the
Habsburg empires composite monarchy.