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Albertina

The Albertina, Vienna’s biggest exhibition hall, houses one of the largest and most valuable collections of graphic arts in the world. Visitors can also admire Albrecht Dürer’s “Young Hare” as well as Gustav Klimt’s studies of women. The Albertina, the largest Habsburg residential palace, is located at the southern tip of the Hofburg on one of the last bastion walls of Vienna. The collection was founded in 1776 by Duke Albert of Saxen-Teschen, a son-in-law of Empress Maria Theresa. It now comprises more than a million old master prints and 60,000 drawings.

Famous pieces, such as Dürer’s “Young Hare” and “Praying Hands”, Rubens’ studies of children, as well as masterpieces by Schiele, Cézanne, Klimt, Kokoschka, Picasso and Rauschenberg are shown in temporary exhibitions. The Albertina also owns a collection of architectural drawings and a newly founded collection of photographs (Helmut Newton, Lisette Model amongst others). The staterooms in the largest Habsburg residential palace were inhabited by Empress Maria Theresa’s favorite daughter, Archduchess Marie-Christine, and later by her adopted son Archduke Carl, who won the Battle of Aspern against Napoleon.

The Habsburg State Rooms
The 21 Habsburg State Rooms extend over two floors of the palace. The magnificent Hall of the Muses forms the centerpiece, flanked on either side by stately apartments. The palace’s original Louis XI décor had been ordered from the royal court ateliers in Paris and Versailles for Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen’s Brussels residence, Laeken Castle.

Kleines Spanisches Appartement
In 1822, Albert’s heir Archduke Carl had the interiors redone in French imperial style, commissioning the Viennese furniture manufacturer Joseph Danhauser (1780-1829) to refurbish the entire palace with fine furniture and elaborately inlaid parquet floors. Of the décor from the second half of the 19th century when the palace belonged to Archduke Albrecht, only the so-called Rococo Room has survived.

The Spanish Apartment was created under Albrecht’s nephew Archduke Friedrich. This was the only permanent residence of the Spanish royal family outside Spanish territory.

When the palace was expropriated by the new Austrian state in 1919, Friedrich was permitted to take all its furnishings with him into exile in Hungary. The newly empty apartments were converted into a study hall, a library, exhibition rooms, depots and office space.

In 2000, work began on the comprehensive restoration of the staterooms. The return of the original furniture was secured through successive acquisitions as well as loans from the Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art (MAK) and the Federal Furniture Depot’s Imperial Furniture Collection.

Channel: Museums Tour
Categories: Art & Culture, Sightseeing

Weiterführende Links:

• Albertina
• Albrecht Dürer wiki