Displaying items by tag: Vienna

Géza von Habsburg, an art historian in suburban New York, would have inherited part of an Austrian empire if only his ancestors had not made some terrible life choices. He did inherit the title of archduke and an interest in the history of luxury goods — the kind his family commissioned for centuries. Recently, he watched as about 100 of his family’s former heirlooms were installed at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts here for a new exhibition, “The Habsburgs: Rarely Seen Masterpieces from Europe’s Greatest Dynasty,” that runs through May.

It is the most comprehensive display yet staged for the collections from these Holy Roman Emperors, who owned palaces from Ukraine to Mexico. Gowns, rifles, suits of armor, sorbet cups, gilded knickknacks and artworks by luminaries like Rubens, Titian, Velazquez, Tintoretto and Holbein have come from the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna.

To this day, Albrecht Dürer (1471-1528) is widely considered the greatest German artist ever to live. A master of drawings, watercolors, and engravings, Dürer produced the earliest known self-portrait drawing in European art at the age of 13 as well as some of the first stand-alone landscapes. The craftsmanship of his woodcuts was so exceptional that he singlehandedly changed the public’s perception of the medium from commonplace to fine art.

The National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. is currently hosting the exhibition Albrecht Dürer: Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina. The Albertina in Vienna, Austria holds one of the finest and largest collections of Dürer’s work including masterpieces such as The Great Piece of Turf, a watercolor nature study of the Renaissance; the beyond iconic chiaroscuro drawing Praying Hands; and his famous self portrait.

Master Drawings, Watercolors, and Prints from the Albertina presents 91 remarkable works from the Albertina as well as 46 related engravings, woodcuts, drawings, and prints from the National Gallery’s own collection. This exhibition, which is the culmination of decades of acquisition, study, and exhibitions of early German art at the National Gallery, will be on view through June 9, 2013.

Pablo Picasso’s (1881-1973) Femme Assise Prés D’une Fenêtre (1932) sold for nearly $45 million at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern evening sale on Tuesday, February 5, 2013 in London. The coveted portrait of Picasso’s lover and muse, Marie-Therese Walter, came from a private collection and was last seen on the market in 1997 when it sold for $7.5 million. The portrait was guaranteed to sell due to a third-party “irrevocable bid” and while the buyer remains anonymous, some believe it was the guarantor, represented by Patti Wong, the chairman of Sotheby’s Asia.

The auction, which totaled $190 million, also included a separately catalogued section of 21 Surrealist works. All but three works sold, adding $26 million to the overall sale. Highlights from this section included Joan Miro’s (1893-1983) Femme revant de l’evasion (1945), which sold for $13 million and also carried a third-party guarantee.

Another considerable sale of the night was a series of three drawings by Egon Schiele (1890-1918), which brought $22 million. The works were put on sale by Vienna’s Leopold Museum. Another Schiele work, a pencil, gouache, and watercolor piece completed in 1915, sold to Wong on behalf a client for $13 million.

The sale was Sotheby’s second highest for an Impressionist sale in London.

Vienna’s Leopold Museum agreed to pay $5 million to the granddaughter of Jenny Steiner, a Jewish silk- factory owner, to keep in its collection a painting by Egon Schiele that was stolen by the Nazis.

The 1914 painting, “Houses by the Sea,” belonged to Steiner until she fled Austria in 1938, shortly after the Nazis marched into Vienna. She escaped to Paris and later emigrated to the U.S. with her two daughters. The painting was seized and sold by the Nazis, then later auctioned. Rudolf Leopold, the founder of the Leopold Museum, acquired it in 1955, the museum said in a statement published today on its website.

“After long negotiations, we succeeded in finding a fair and just solution,” the museum said. “Both sides went to great lengths to find a definitive settlement.”

The Leopold Museum owns 44 Schiele paintings and 180 works on paper, the biggest collection of the artist worldwide. During Rudolf Leopold’s lifetime -- he died on June 29 last year at the age of 85 -- the museum argued that as a private foundation, it was not subject to Austria’s restitution law, which only applies to federal government museums.

After Leopold’s death, his son Diethard Leopold pledged to settle all outstanding claims for Nazi-looted art in the museum’s collection as quickly as possible.