Visual Representation of the Young Widow-Mother in the Early Modern Times: The Castle of Slovenska Bistrica and the Patronage of Maria Juliana Countess Vetter von der Lilie

The article provides an insight into methodological approaches and research questions in early modern studies of female patronage, relevant to the visual representation of a young mother-widow from Inner Austria. Maria Juliana Countess Vetter von der Lilie (1672–1708) inherited the Castle of Slovenska Bistrica in Styria (Slovenia) after husband’s death in 1695. Although the Castle was redecorated after 1717 by Ignaz Maria Count Attems, the uncle of the deceased, several spaces can still be linked to the women’s patronage. A biblical quotation on the main portal announces that a wise woman built her house, a fresco on the first floor depicts the Allegory of Mother Earth, and Vischer’s print of the garden and the ceiling painting of the pharmacy also show themes often related to women. Maria Juliana Vetter is a prominent secular nobelwoman who has emerged from her husband’s shadow and from oblivion in the under-researched field of female patronage in Central Europe.