ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book attempts to provide an account of institutions and individuals that have been marginalized in museological study. It deals with the founding of the Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna as well as that of parallel museums in other crownlands. Study of the museums of design and applied arts in the Habsburg Empire raises a number of questions, of which a recurring one is the extent to which one can speak of a co-ordinated economic and cultural policy across the state as a whole. The Museum for Art and Industry in Vienna was founded to further a particular economic goal. As such, it was enmeshed within a specific political ideology, namely, mid-nineteenth-century Liberalism, and stands as one of the most concrete symbols of the embrace of Liberal social and economic ideals.
