ALBERTINA

Description

Essentials about the Albertina in brief

The Albertina is one of the world’s most important art collections and one of the most visited sights in Vienna. With over 30,000 drawings and prints, it not only houses one of the largest graphic collections in the world, but is also in possession of one of the most high-caliber collections of Classical Modern painting. The Albertina is therefore well worth a visit, and not just for art lovers.

The collections of the Albertina

The name of the Palais Albertina, where the collection is exhibited, goes back to Maria Theresa’s son-in-law, Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen. He had the baroque city palace impressively expanded and exquisitely furnished at the beginning of the 19th century. For over 50 years, Duke Albert built up a private collection of 14,000 drawings and 200,000 prints. Many of the master drawings, from Michelangelo’s male nudes to Dürer’s field hares to Ruben’s portraits of children, are now among the most famous works in art history.

However, the Albertina houses not only a graphic arts collection, but also one of Europe’s largest and highest-caliber collections of Classical Modernist painting. In 2007, the Batliner family donated its private collection to the Albertina, which includes works by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Matisse, Kandinsky, Nolde and Picasso.