A Habsburg Queen’s Coronation
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Johann Heinrich Ramhoffsky (1700–1760) [Die Beschreibung] Des königlichen Einzugs, welchen Ihro Königliche Majestät … Maria Theresia, zu Hungarn und Böheim Königin … in dero königliche drey Prager-Städte gehalten [The Description of the Royal Arrival of Her Royal Majesty … Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia … in the Three Royal Towns of Prague] Prague: Carl Franz Rosenmüller, [1743] NYPL, Spencer Collection Maria Theresa (1717–1780; from 1740 Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary) was the wife of Franz Stephan (1708–1765), Duke of Lothringia, who from 1745 to 1765 ruled the Holy Roman Empire as Franz I. After her husband’s death, she became the de facto ruler of the empire, although she was not officially crowned as the empress. She was an extraordinarily forceful ruler, deeply religious and an advocate for and executor of many significant reforms. Ramhoffsky’s account is illustrated by a set of intricately executed etchings by various engravers after drawings by Johann Josephus Dietzler, depicting pomp and circumstance at other contemporaneous royal courts of Europe. This engraving depicts Maria Theresa at the time of her coronation.