From Dürer to Napoleon - The Origins of the Albertina (en) - a podcast by CastYourArt.com

From Dürer to Napoleon - The Origins of the Albertina
The current exhibition „From Dürer to Napoleon - The Origins of the Albertina” shows masterpieces of the Albertina’s collection in the context of the exciting biographies of its founders – prince Albert of Saxony, duke of Teschen and his wife the archduchess Marie Christine, daughter of empress Maria Theresia.
This extensive exhibition reunites the show-pieces of the collection – starting from Michelangelo to Leonardo, Rembrandt and Rubens to Caspar David Friedrich and many others. The famous water colour Young Hare by Dürer is on public display for the first time since 2003. It dates from 1502 and is extremely light sensitive; therefore it is exhibited behind a filter glass. In the permanent exhibition it is present only as a facsimile and otherwise stored in a safe.
On display there are the knee-length portrait of an apostle by Da Vinci, or the children’s portraits by Rubens, as well as Dürer’s Praying Hands, Rembrandt’s elephant, a lion by Fragonard, the witches by Hans Baldung Grien, Raphael’s Madonna with the pomegranate, then there is a Freemason with a pug in porcelain, a sumptuous regalia of the order of Leopold, tapestries from Paris, a rapier beset with emeralds, as well as one of the hats Napoleon wore during the battle of Eylau in 1814.
It was 238 years ago that the Albertina collection was founded by Prince Albert of Saxony, on the 4th of July 1776. In that year the couple undertook an educational trip to Italy. On this 4th of July the Genoese art expert and Austrian ambassador Count Giacomo Durazzo handed him over what he had been entrusted with and had prepared for two years: a selection of 1000 etchings, depicting the history of painting. In this exhibition, Durazzo is to be seen in a portrait by Martin van Meytens, together with his wife. The collection would eventually comprise more than 14.000 drawings and 20.000 graphic prints. An exhibition-portrait by CastYourArt. | castyourart.com (text written by Cem Angeli)

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