The Treasure Chamber, from the tsar's eggs to a piece of the Moon

The Treasure Chamber is the smallest museum on the Städtle and the one that works best on people with no patience for museums. In a single visit you go from a 16th-century gauntlet to a tsar’s egg and a piece of the Moon, and nowhere else in Liechtenstein offers that.

What is the SchatzKammer?

It’s the LandesMuseum’s fourth house, opened in 2015 at Städtle 37, in the same building as the PostMuseum and the Kunstraum Engländerbau. The following year the European Museum Forum shortlisted it for European Museum of the Year, no small thing for a room this size.

It has two holdings with nothing in common. One is a selection from the princes’ own collection, the great private collection the family shows mainly in Vienna. The other belongs to a local man, Adulf Peter Goop, who gave it to the state in 2010.

The princes’ pieces

The Princely House is rightly proud of one of the most important private collections in the world, built up over four centuries. What you see here is a small but curious selection. There’s a perpetual calendar made around 1600 for Emperor Rudolf II, an armoured gauntlet of Emperor Maximilian II from 1571, and a replica of the princely hat of Karl I, the first Prince of Liechtenstein, who lived from 1569 to 1627.

There are also ceremonial weapons, hunting sets and gifts the family received from kings and emperors, such as Frederick II of Prussia and Joseph II of Austria. For me it’s the least exciting part, though I can see why an arms enthusiast would call it the best.

Goop’s eggs and Bleuler’s Rhine

The Goop collection has what most visitors come for, the Easter eggs. The museum calls it the most varied collection of eggs in the world, in gold, silver, precious stones, porcelain and glass. The finest date from the tsarist era, by the great goldsmiths of the day such as Karl Fabergé and Alexander Edvard Tillander. The most famous is Fabergé’s «Apple Blossom Egg», and the museum counts the set among the best outside Russia.

The other half of the Goop bequest is quieter. Johann Ludwig Bleuler (1792-1850) painted the Rhine in 80 gouaches, from its source in Graubünden to the North Sea, passing Liechtenstein’s western border on the way. Goop spent decades hunting them down and found 77. A selection is always on the walls. The museum reproduces his view of Vaduz from around 1820-1830, and if it’s hanging, look at the village before everything you see today.

Why is there moon rock in Vaduz?

This is the story I’d tell over dinner. Balzers AG, now part of Oerlikon, studied how materials change when they leave the atmosphere and produced a coating for the Apollo spacecraft against cosmic radiation. By way of thanks, Liechtenstein received a few grams of moon rock from the first crewed landing, Apollo 11 in 1969, and from the last, Apollo 17 in 1972.

A Liechtenstein flag also flew to the Moon on both missions. The national post office’s stamp website says it was the size of a cigarette packet. The flags and the rock are both in the room.

Here too is the design for the country’s first stamp, of 1912, by Koloman Moser, one of the founders of the Vienna Secession. If that catches your eye, the rest of the story is in the Postage Stamp Museum in the same building.

Price, hours and the Monday trick

It opens every day from 10:00 to 17:00, Monday included, when the Kunstmuseum and the LandesMuseum are shut. It closes only on 24, 25 and 31 December and 1 January.

Pricing is the weak spot. The LandesMuseum website only legibly publishes the combined ticket with the Liechtenstein National Museum, CHF 13 or CHF 10 reduced, so I’d simply buy that. Under-16s pay nothing, the All Inclusive Erlebnispass covers it and the Welcome pass knocks off 20%.

If you’re pairing it with the PostMuseum, do the Treasure Chamber first. Seeing Moser’s design here and the printed stamps next door afterwards makes the two feel like one visit. The free Hearonymus app covers ten highlights in English, so load it on the way in if you like context without booking a guide.

For what’s nearby and how to fit it into the day, see my guide to Liechtenstein’s museums.