Vienna Art Gallery, Austria - Design,Art and Graphics

Art Gallery

Vienna's Albertina (art gallery) possesses 45,000 drawings and watercolors, about 1.5 million printed sheets of graphic material casing a period of half a millennium and 35,000 books - it is the world's most wide-ranging collection of graphic material. The anthology was founded in 1786 by Maria Theresa's son-in-law, Duke Albert of Saxony-Tescha. Since 1795 it has been housed in the previous Taroucca Palace. Between 1801 and 1804 the structure was altered by Louis von Montoyer. The Albertina as we know it today upshot from the blend, after the First World War, of the collections of Duke Albert and the print room of the Imperial Library. Since June 1994 the Albertina has been closed for renovation which should take until 1998.