Celebrating 250 years of one of the world’s great art museums — the Albertina in Vienna

Fourth of July 1776 is remembered chiefly as the day that Britain’s 13 American colonies declared themselves an independent nation. By coincidence, it was also the day that one of the world’s great art collections was established, as Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen and his wife Maria Christina obtained their first artworks.

These were a portfolio of engravings acquired on their behalf by Austria’s ambassador to Venice, Giacomo Durazzo. In the decades ahead, the couple would amass a comprehensive collection of graphic work from the early Renaissance onwards — including masterpieces such as Albrecht Dürer’s watercolour of a young hare (quasi-photographic in its observational accuracy) and Leonardo’s silverpoint drawing of a glowering old apostle (probably Saint Peter).

By the time of the duke’s death in 1822, a quarter of a century after that of his wife, he owned 200,000 prints and 14,000 drawings. Durazzo described him as a man ‘sublime by virtue of his most exquisite intellectual gifts’.

Posthumously, the collection remained within Maria Christina’s family — the Habsburgs — kept in the Viennese palace that the couple had called home. This building was once known as the Palais Tarouca, and later the Palais Erzherzog Friedrich; nowadays it’s the Albertina Museum (named after the duke).

Each succeeding generation has grown the collection, even after it became the property of the Republic of Austria in 1919, following the Habsburg dynasty’s exile at the end of the First World War. Today it boasts more than one million objects, and although works on paper are still the core, important works in other media — such as painting, sculpture and photography — have been added.

This year marks the collection’s 250th anniversary. According to the Albertina’s director general, Ralph Gleis, ‘it offers the chance to look forward as well as back; to celebrate yesterday, but also consider tomorrow’.

Across what is now three sites, the museum hosts roughly 18 temporary exhibitions a year. Gleis likes it when these shows ‘address issues relevant to [21st-century] society’ — a good example being Her Story, currently on view, which shines a light on the women artists in the museum’s collection.

In certain cases — such as Louise Bourgeois or Anni Albers — these artists are reasonably well known. However, for the most part, the names will be new to people. For example, Geertruydt Roghman, a Dutch printmaker from the mid-17th century who depicted women doing household chores; and Emilie Mediz-Pelikan, an Austrian Symbolist active around the turn of the 20th century, who produced landscapes stressing the power of nature.

‘Women artists have been part of the Albertina collection since the beginning,’ says Gleis. ‘But only now are they getting the recognition they deserve, with the first exhibition fully dedicated to them.’

Another way in which the Albertina has moved with the times is the opening of two new sites this decade: Albertina Modern in 2020 and Albertina Klosterneuburg in 2024. The former is located in central Vienna, a short walk from the main museum; the latter on the banks of the Danube, 10 miles north of the capital, in the picturesque town of Klosterneuburg.

There’s fluidity to the programming, but the new venues tend to host exhibitions of art made since 1900 and 1945 respectively. The main show at Albertina Modern this year explored the relationship that KAWS and other contemporary artists have had with comics.

‘Even in the early days,’ says Gleis, ‘the collection contained new works as well as old.’ Duke Albert’s purchases included pieces by peers of his such as Caspar David Friedrich, Fragonard and Goya. (The museum owns a complete first edition of Goya’s prints series Los Caprichos, from 1799.)

The son of King Augustus III of Poland, Albert married Maria Christina in 1766. She was the fifth — and, it is said, favourite — of Empress Maria Theresa I of Austria’s 16 children. Her younger sister Marie Antoinette would have an ill-fated reign as Queen of France.

Maria Christina was a keen amateur painter and found in Albert not just a husband, but a fellow art lover. ‘I’m glad you’re more interested in Van Dyck than in hunting,’ she wrote to him, early on in their relationship.

Lengthy governorships on behalf of the Habsburg monarchy took the couple to Bratislava and then Brussels, before they settled for good in Vienna. The build-up of their art collection was aided by the upheavals of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, which saw the dispersal of numerous high-calibre holdings — for instance, a marvellous set of Italian drawings (Leonardo’s apostle and various Raphaels included) belonging to Charles Antoine de Ligne, a French prince who died in battle in 1792.

After visiting the Palais Tarouca a few years later, the Swedish collector Jacob Gustaf De la Gardie wrote that he had seen ‘perhaps the finest and most exquisite [graphic collection] in Europe’.

Albert and Maria Christina amassed that collection against the backdrop of the Enlightenment, and the duke reportedly enjoyed showing it to a broad audience of artists, scholars and friends for their edification.

After the couple died, it passed into the hands of their adopted son, Archduke Charles, a field marshal who in 1809 had orchestrated Napoleon’s first major defeat, at the Battle of Aspern-Essling.

Fast-forward to 1919, and Austria’s new republican government confiscated the palace and its contents. Before their enforced departure — to Hungary — the Habsburgs managed to strip the palace of its furnishings. However, the art collection stayed behind, and the building became a museum.

At the start of the Second World War, the collection was removed for safekeeping to a salt mine near Salzburg. It was a wise move, given the severe damage done to the museum by Allied bombing in 1945. The building was repaired, but fell into a general state of neglect for the rest of the 20th century, frequented by connoisseurs rather than the wider public.

‘If you asked someone standing 100 metres from the Albertina where it was, they wouldn’t have been able to tell you,’ said Klaus Albrecht Schröder a few years ago. Schröder was the museum’s director general from 1999 until Gleis took over in 2025. He oversaw a remarkable restoration and expansion at the start of the millennium. (Although the Albertina is a state institution, it met most of the €80-million cost thanks to private donors.)

Historic splendour returned to the erstwhile palace, with the restored suite of 20 state rooms a particular highlight. Many of these had been converted into offices or storerooms, but all are now open to the public — filled with period chandeliers, mirrors, tapestries and Biedermeier furniture that Schröder acquired, allowing visitors to feel as if they are taking a walk back into Habsburg times.

As for the art, the Albertina’s gallery space was increased tenfold by the overhaul, thanks largely to the addition of three floors underground.

Given the nature of the museum’s collection — in particular, the sensitivity of graphic works to prolonged exposure to light — temporary exhibitions are preferred to permanent displays. Among this year’s standouts was a show devoted to the French 19th-century caricaturist Honoré Daumier.

Over the anniversary weekend in July, entry to all three Albertina venues was made free of charge; tens of thousands of commemorative stamps were issued by Austria’s postal service; and a gala event was held at the main museum, attended by luminaries such as Jeff Koons and the Austrian chancellor, Christian Stocker.

Gleis also cut a gigantic birthday cake, given to the Albertina by its neighbours at the Hotel Sacher. This took the form of the much-loved Austrian dessert, Sachertorte, a chocolate sponge with apricot jam, invented at the landmark Viennese hotel (which itself celebrates a big anniversary this year, its 150th).

‘All visitors were offered slices, while supply lasted,’ Gleis says with a smile.

On the subject of visitors, they numbered roughly 25,000 per annum in the late 20th century, and just over one million in 2025. (That covers attendance at the original museum only. Across its three sites, the Albertina welcomed 1.3 million people last year.)

The dramatic rise is due, in part, to the broadening out of the collection — something that has been taking place, more or less, since Schröder took the helm. High-profile additions include 6,000 pieces of contemporary art once owned by the businessman Karlheinz Essl and his wife Agnes. The Essls had especially liked work by post-war Austrian artists — such as the sculptors Franz West and Erwin Wurm — and Albertina Klosterneuburg occupies the space where the couple once housed their collection.

More significant still was the permanent loan, from 2007, of the Batliner Collection: a stunning set of 800 modernist pictures belonging to the lawyer Herbert Batliner. A selection of these can be seen at the Albertina in a popular, long-term display called Monet to Chagall, featuring works of Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, German Expressionism and more.

Monet to Chagall includes a number of paintings by Picasso, who is also the co-subject of a blockbuster temporary show this autumn: Picasso — Bacon places his work alongside that of the British artist who idolised him, Francis Bacon.

Unlike most Austrian museums, which receive the majority of their funding from the state, the Albertina raises two-thirds of its own budget. Gleis says this inevitably means extra work for his team, but he likes to think that it helps keep them ‘dynamic’ too.

The museum recently announced major exhibitions dedicated to Parmigianino and Egon Schiele, to open in March 2027 and October 2027 respectively, and is currently completing a catalogue raisonné of Gustav Klimt’s drawings, for publication online.

‘The art scene in Vienna is thriving right now, and the Albertina plays an important part in that,’ says Gleis. In this regard, one might mention the busy gallery sector, centred on the streets of Schleifmühlgasse and Eschenbachgasse, plus the cultural hub known as MuseumsQuartier.

The Albertina’s exhibition schedule is now full into the 2030s, a sign of a curatorial team brimming with ideas. ‘This is a very special year for us,’ Gleis says, ‘but it’s important to keep up the momentum.’

Picasso — Bacon runs until 31 January 2027, and Her Story until 14 February 2027

For further information on the Albertina and its 250th anniversary, visit albertina.at