Joseph Fischer, Evening Party at the Palais Fries, 1800, aquatint and etching. Vienna, Albertina, Inv. DG2007/349

Conference on Drawings Collections in Vienna and Central Europe

10-11 June 2021 / Wien, Albertina & University (online by Zoom)

The conference aims to systematically illuminate the emergence of collections of drawings in Vienna and Central Europe, asking about the actors, their international interconnections and their motivations, about special collection foci, acquisition strategies and tastes, about storage and classification systems, about medial dissemination, for example in reproductive engravings or through catalogue works, about structures of the art trade and the interplay between collecting, connoisseurship and drawing studies.

The conference programme is available on the website of the Vienna Center for the History of Collecting.

The conference will take place as a ZOOM meeting. You can dial in directly via the following link: https://univienna.zoom.us/j/96825246424?pwd=TTdwRU5Hek5qR01YMkx2TzJJTnc0UT09.
Meeting ID : 968 2524 6424
Identification code : 178116

Registration is not required. Information and contact via Stephanie Sailer: stephanie.sailer@univie.ac.at

The collection founded by Albert von Sachsen-Teschen and his wife Marie Christine in 1776 focused on master drawings from the late Middle Ages to the modern era. It forms the basis of the Albertina, one of the world’s most important collections of graphic art. Over the centuries, numerous other collections of drawings of very different compositions were created in Vienna and Central Europe. Aristocrats, bankers and merchants, artists, musicians and writers, art dealers and art historians have devoted their passion for collecting to drawings. In the process, the collectors, their agents and advisors were always in close contact with other centres of the international art market such as Rome, Venice, Paris, London, Amsterdam, Leipzig or Berlin. Vienna was also home to important collections that were initially intended for a different destination or later arrived there through inheritance and sale. The Albertina is also the best example of this form of art transfer. It was founded in Bratislava, further developed in Brussels and finally transferred successively to Vienna via Dresden between 1795 and 1801.