Viennese bronze Louis XVI statue, Personification of March

A large bronze statue on a round base representing a winged young man holding a flaming torch in one hand and supporting a flower-bedecked ram with his other arm, while leaning against a pedestal upon which stands an oval shield adorned with a family crest.

This male figure is a personification of March, a month characterised by the astrological sign of Aries, i.e. the Ram, and is represented by – among other things – the war god Mars, with a ram at his side and a torch in his hand. The family crest in his hand is a direct reference to Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor and sovereign of the Habsburg Monarchy.

When Joseph, the long-awaited son of Maria Theresa of Austria and Emperor Francis Stephen (a.k.a. Francis of Lorraine), was born in 1741, the line of succession was assured until the end of the monarchy. When the prince was seven years old, a masculine court was established for him. This encompassed the creation of new titles, coats of arms and seals to prepare him for his entrance into ceremonial and public life. As the hereditary monarch of the two houses of Austria and Lorraine, his ancestral coast of arms had to be more specifically recognisable. As such, the shield was rendered with two fields: the Austrian silver-and-red shield, and the three silver eagles of Lorraine, known as alérions. Although tradition demanded that the order of these two components should be reversed – in alliance and conjugal coats of arms, the male weapon precedes the female – the officials who designed the coat of arms ensured that there could be no doubt that the House of Austria took precedence over the House of Lorraine. Joseph II also used this coat of arms on his chancellery seal as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, up to his death in 1790.

Born in March, Joseph II regularly had himself portrayed with likenesses of the Roman god Mars. This statue may have been created as a memorial in the years following his death.