Two-seated dress litter

Made circa 1700, this litter is upholstered in red leather and studded with more than 11,000 gilded nails, and is the oldest item in the Imperial Carriage Museum collection. It was carried by two mules, and meant to be a luxury vehicle for travel. It’s apparently even fitted for a toilet!

As rail travel caught on, litters disappeared from the streets of Europe, but this one survived to fulfill a ceremonial function: when a new ruler came to power, it was used to carry the archducal coronet, the crown of the province of Lower Austria, in a ceremonial procession from Klosterneuburg Monastery to Vienna and back again, for hereditary homage.