, about 1760 Upon his father's death in 1737, his elder brother,
Wenzel Ferdinand, succeeded as the 5th
Prince of Lobkowitz. When his brother died, unmarried, two years later in 1739, the title passed to young Ferdinand. When the
First Silesian War began in 1740, and the Prussians conquered Silesia, and with it the
Duchy of Sagan, which was valuable to Lobkowitz, he supported the Prussians and
Frederick the Great, which was likely a reason why, unlike his relatives, he never received the
Order of the Golden Fleece. In January 1750, he officially received Sagan as a fief from the
Prussian king. From 1743 onwards, the now ruling prince was able to devote himself entirely to his extensive studies with a focus on music in Vienna, building on his father's work with the orchestra. Ferdinand, who was considered one of the best amateur violinists, was taught by
Christoph Willibald Gluck and
Franz Benda in
Berlin. In 1745, he took Gluck on a trip to Italy and England. In 1746, he travelled to London again to buy breeding horses. There he saw paintings by
Canaletto, some of which he bought and brought back to Bohemia.
Life in Prague , Prague In 1753, he acquired the
Palais Lobkowicz on Vlašská street in Prague, on the outskirts of the old city. After acquiring the palace, Lobkowicz moved out of the older
Lobkowicz Palace in
Hradčany. In 1927, his family sold the Vlašská Palace to the
Czechoslovak state which used it as the
Ministry of Education. It was sold in 1948 and used as the Chinese embassy, before being acquired by the
Federal Republic of Germany in 1974, who use it as their embassy to this day. ==Personal life==