Masterpieces of the Habsburgs: From Vienna to Rome

For the first time in Italy, more than fifty masterpieces from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna traveled together to tell the story of one of Europe’s greatest collecting enterprises. Curated by Cäcilia Bischoff, art historian at the museum, the exhibition presents the Habsburg collection as both a museum and a dynastic self-portrait, an emblem of imperial splendor and cultural ambition.

The roster reads like a short history of European painting: Titian, Tintoretto, Paolo Veronese, Parmigianino, Giovanni Battista Moroni and Orazio Gentileschi from Italy; Lucas Cranach the Elder and Pieter Bruegel the Elder from the north; Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck from Flanders; Velázquez from Spain; and Giuseppe Arcimboldo, court painter to the Habsburgs.

A handsome companion for lovers of the Old Masters and for anyone planning, or remembering, a visit to Vienna’s great museum.