Main Salon
The largest room in the castle is the Main Salon, furnished with furniture from the first half of the 19th century in the Empire style. The walls are decorated with the Gallery of Officers of the cuirassier cavalry regiment of Baron Seherr von Thoss, who gained fame in battles against the Turks in the territory of Austria-Hungary.
This collection, consisting of 58 pieces, is one of the largest and oldest in Europe. The portraits of high artistic value were created between 1727 and 1731 by Carl Emrich. Count Andrej Koháry, one of the owners of the castle, also served in the regiment, and later established his own dragoon regiment at his own expense.
Main Salon
The walls of the room are covered with 19th-century paper wallpaper featuring a raised velvet powder pattern and printed golden decorative motifs.
Velvet Wallpaper
The majolica stove with rich ornamental decoration is the work of 18th-century Viennese masters. The cleverly designed method of adding firewood from the hallway was very practical because it kept the salons clean and undisturbed the noble family during heating.
Each room in the castle has a unique stove design. The long (52-meter) hallways of the castle in Svätý Anton are decorated with over a thousand paintings and hunting trophies from the former owners.
The visitor will be drawn to period photographs from various corners of Europe and the world, which the Coburg family visited during their travels, as well as numerous graphic sheets depicting various scenes, whether hunting, military, or genre scenes.
Main Staircase
The Main Staircase leads from the basement to the upper floor and is a modest copy of the staircase in Vienna’s Schönbrunn. The railing is adorned with allegorical sculptures of the Day, Night, and the four elements – fire, water, earth, and air. The sculptures are the work of Dionysius Stanetti, who came from an Italian-Austrian artistic family.
In the mid-18th century, he settled in Kremnica, where he created the Plague Column, as he did in Banská Štiavnica. The ceiling frescoes, which also feature allegorical scenes, correspond with the sculptural decoration of the staircase.
The central fresco depicts a group of ancient gods. In the center is the goddess Juno, the highest Olympian goddess, sister and wife of Jupiter, protector of women, marriage, and childbirth. To her right is her brother and husband, the supreme Olympian god Jupiter. Other figures include Athena, Apollo, and Flora.
Music Salon
The Music Salon is decorated with a complex painting of the walls in a classicizing style from the mid-19th century. In vibrant, rich colors, the entire range of decorative and ornamental elements – scrolls, masks, lyres, and eagles – is displayed. It represents an arcaded architecture with hanging draperies, while the background evokes a view into the open space with a blue sky. It is furnished with a baroque seating set from the early 18th century.
The rare upholstery is original, hand-embroidered using the small and large point tapestry technique with floral or figurative motifs. The walls of the Roman Salon are decorated with painted textile wallpaper. The main decorative motif consists of illusory busts of Roman emperors, alternating with three scenes inspired by hunting, seafaring, and gallant scenarios.
The painted textile wallpaper is a rare and unique example of decorative painting from the mid-18th century. The hand-embroidered tapestry upholstery on the seating set in the Rococo and Classicist style is notable for its originality and uniqueness. Each chair and armchair is embroidered with a different bouquet of flowers.
Chinese Salon
The owners of the castle in Sv. Anton were not behind the fashion trends of their time, and they set up an Oriental Chinese Salon in their residence. The walls of the salon are covered with beautiful Chinese embroidery on cherry-colored silk, which also repeats on the seating set from the second Rococo period (around 1860). The dominant piece is a Japanese étagère from the last quarter of the 19th century, whose surface is richly decorated with Japanese techniques such as takamaki, hiramaki, kirigane, and covered with natural lacquer.
Chinese Salon
The decoration reveals a landscape with many rocks, fishing villages, and water streams, on which boats are floating. Everything is adorned with floral decoration featuring cherry blossom branches, and each handle on the doors has an original plant or animal motif.
A Chinese deity served as a coin box, cleverly tricking visitors into giving coins. To fill its plump belly, it would ask for coins with one hand and thank with the other. Once it received the coin, it stuck out its tongue. Large Chinese decorative vases depicting ancient knightly games were made in China by order of the former owners.
Dining Room
The venue for festive banquets was the Representative Dining Room for 24 people. It is furnished with 19th-century furniture. The social status of the castle owners is reflected in the precious portraits on the walls. Visitors can see a collection of 19 miniature portraits of Maria Theresa’s family, painted by her daughter Maria Christina. Other portraits depict the Bourbon family, Tsar Paul I of Russia with his wife Maria Feodorovna. The dominant features in the room are, of course, two portraits of Ferdinand Coburg as the Bulgarian tsar and in his later years. The rich collections of glass, porcelain, and majolica include dining, tea, and coffee sets, as well as toilet sets with beautifully painted chamber pots, vases, and other decorative items. The Coburg family purchased porcelain products from various parts of Europe.
The Tyrolean hunting dining room, furnished with massive 19th-century furniture, features a German inscription on the sideboard: "Eat what is good, drink what is fresh, speak what is true, and love what is precious." The walls are adorned with rare oil paintings with hunting motifs from the 18th century. Noteworthy is the hand-painted map of the Murán estate, which has belonged to the Koháry family since 1720.