- Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien Presse

MARCH 8 −
SEPTEMBER 11, 2016
CELEBRATION!
125 YEARS − ANNIVERSARY EXHIBITION
In 2016 the Kunsthistorisches Museum is celebrating a jubilee: 125 years
ago, on October 17, 1891, Emperor Franz Joseph formally opened the
new main museum on Vienna’s Ringstrasse. To celebrate this anniversary
in style we are showing an important exhibition on “the art of
celebration” showcasing precious artworks from all the collections of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum. International loans like Francisco de Goya’s
“La gallina ciega” from the Prado in Madrid or the magnificent
“Yashmak” designed by Shaun Leane for one of Alexander McQueen’s
fashion shows from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London will enrich
this magnificent show which presents 125 groups of objects in three
galleries.
The show focuses on celebrations and their history, and looks at different
aspects of European festivities from the Renaissance to the French
Revolution - at court (especially that of the Habsburgs) in towns and
cities, and in the country. Court banquets and their opulent dishes,
dancing and music form the centre of the show (Gallery VIII). The
adjacent galleries look at sumptuous outdoor parties organized to
celebrate coronations, weddings or birthdays but also during Carnival,
popular festivals or on market days (Gallery IX), and at courtly
tournaments (Gallery I).
Festivities always represent a state of exception during which every-day
laws are temporarily suspended – through role-playing games and
disguises that flout historical, cultural and gender differences. But what
can we display of these ephemeral, long gone festivities? By turning the
question on its head we arrive at a preliminary answer: we can display
what remains of the day – show-pieces, props and pictorial records of
these events.
For millennia something was presented or displayed during many of
these celebrations, be they ecclesiastical or secular. Court festivities
offered the host the opportunity to display precious show-pieces
removed for this purpose from his treasury or Kunstkammer. The large
two-handled rock crystal vase is such a show-piece; in 1764 it was
removed from the Imperial Treasury in Vienna and transported to
Frankfurt for the coronation of Joseph II. After the event these
prestigious artefacts were returned to their respective depositories, only
to reappear again at the next important festivity. Not a show-piece sensu
stricto but nonetheless an important prop is the seventeen-metres-long
tablecloth presented here to the public for the first time; Emperor
Charles V commissioned it in 1527 for the banquets of the Order of the
Golden Fleece. Another extraordinary prop for princely drinking parties
is the 16th century “trick chair” that shackled guests until they had
downed the content of a “welcome-glass”.
Fantastic parade armour worn at Renaissance tournaments documents
exceptional creativity and imagination, and these artefacts are among
the most fascinating props used as elegant disguises by the elite. Courtly
festivities demanded both opulence and splendour but also extravagance
– including technical extravagance. A particularly sophisticated
construction that documents the innovative potential and the creative
energies employed to plan and produce surprising show-effects is the
mechanical breast-piece comprising springs and levers that Emperor
Maximilian I commissioned for courtly tournaments. A direct hit on the
shield of one’s opponent activated the mechanism, catapulting the pieces
of the disintegrating shield high into the air. Hosts worked hard to
surprise and enchant their guests, and the creative achievements of the
court artists especially employed to plan and organize these festivities
reflected back on their patrons.
Fragile sculptures made of molten sugar functioned as ephemeral table
décor at banquets, and they, too, illustrate the sophistication of such
costly festive creations. Contemporary Tuscan artisans have produced a
number of sugar statuettes especially for this exhibition, an attempt to
recreate the splendour of these centrepieces known as trionfi di tavola.
But festive infrastructure also required invisible props like the 17th–
century rocket-pole that bears witness to the magnificence of ephemeral
baroque fireworks displays.
In addition to opulent treasures and curious extravagances the
exhibition includes depictions of real and imaginary festivities: from
coronations to Bruegel’s boisterous peasant celebrations to the fanciful
fêtes galantes of Watteau and his followers – dreamy scenes set in
Arcadian parklands in which fashionable ladies and gentlemen give
themselves up to dance, games and gallant conversation.
Public festivals offered a counter-draft to the strictly regulated
hierarchical court festivities - especially during Carnival, a looking-glass
world when the existing social order was temporarily turned upside
down through exuberant partying, the donning of disguises and role
reversal - one way of defusing the tensions that accumulate in every
hierarchic society.
A number of musical examples document that various elements of public
festivals have enriched and inspired court celebrations. A perfect
example of this rich interdependency is the painting depicting “blind
man’s buff” by the Spanish court painter Francisco de Goya, who
recorded public festivals and their entertainments in many of his
compositions. Occasionally elements of a public festival are even turned
into a court ceremony, and are thus constrained and controlled. One
example is the Cuccagna Napoletana, which evolved out of carnival
processions in Naples. The rising number of increasingly serious
accidents during celebrations originally organized by the craftsmen’s
guild led the ruler to assume control. Royal troops guarded a land-ofCockayne-like structure set up in front of the royal palace until the king
standing on a balcony gave the sign that gave it up for plunder, and it
was stormed by the populace.
The artefacts assembled for this exhibition bear witness to the
exceptional splendour and opulence of some of these festivities but they
also hint at their rigid as well as fragile order. They also show that the
history of celebrations includes some that never actually happened.
The exhibition offers insights into the history of celebrations – mainly,
but not exclusively, during the early Modern Era. Our aim is to show
that throughout history festivities were always also displays, and
although the installation is “festive” it aims also to remind visitors of
what separates us from earlier festivities: it is, of course, obvious that
modern museum visitors differ greatly from the protagonists and
spectators of historical feasts – but how does a modern audience see
itself? The exhibition poses this question in the form of a magnificent
baroque mirror - it is, in a way, a precursor of our modern selfies, and
functioned in much the same way. But perhaps it can also turn into an
instrument of (humorous) self reflection, for which there is more than
enough cause 125 years after the formal opening of the magnificent
museum building on the Ringstrasse.
The exhibition was curated by Gudrun Swoboda, curator for Baroque
Painting in the Picture Gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. Most
of the artefacts on show come from the rich holdings of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum, and some of them have never, or only very
rarely, been on display. In addition, the show includes loans from a
number of national and international museums such as the Victoria &
Albert Museum in London, the Museo del Prado in Madrid, the Museum
Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Germanisches
Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the Historisches Museum Frankfurt,
the MAK – Austrian Museum for Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, the
Albertina,
the
Österreichische
Nationalbibliothek,
the
Hofmobiliendepot and the Musikverein in Vienna, and the Tiroler
Landesmuseum. The exhibition is organized in collaboration with the
Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, who have also lent a number of
important works.
PRESS PHOTOGRAPHS
These images may be used free of charge when writing about the
exhibition; to download them please go to http://press.khm.at.
Francisco de Goya (1746 – 1828)
Blind Man’s Buff (La Gallina Ciega)
1788
canvas, 269 x 350 cm
© Photographic Archive, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid
Wolfgang Heimbach (Oldenburg c. 1613 - after 1678?)
Nocturnal Banquet
1640
copper, 62 x 114 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Wolfgang Heimbach (Oldenburg c. 1613 - after 1678?)
Nocturnal Banquet (details)
1640
copper, 62 x 114 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Johann Carl Auerbach
Court Banquet to celebrate the Engagement of Archduchess Marie
Christine to Prince Albert of Saxony, 1766
1773
canvas
© KHM-Museumsverband
Peter Paul Rubens
Bacchanalian Scene: „Silenus Dreaming“
c. 1610/12
oil on canvas, 158 x 217 cm
© Vienna, Academy of Fine Arts, Picture Gallery
after Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen 1577 - 1640 Antwerp)
The Garden of Love
after 1630/31
wood, 73,5 cm x 105,3 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Maerten van Heemskerck (Heemskerck 1498 - 1574 Haarlem)
The Triumph of Bacchus
c. 1536/37
wood, 56 x 106,6 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Pieter Bruegel the elder (Breda ? c. 1525/30 - 1569 Brussels)
Fight between Carnival and Lent
dated 1559
wood, 118 x 164,5 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Pieter Bruegel the elder (Breda ? um 1525/30 - 1569 Brüssel)
Peasant Dance
c. 1568
wood, 114 x 164 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
David Teniers the younger (Antwerp 1610 - 1690 Brussels)
Peasant Kermes
c. 1647
canvas, 76 x 112 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Johannes Lingelbach (Frankfurt 1622 - 1674 Amsterdam)
Carnival in Rome
c. 1650/1651
canvas, 42,5 x 51,5 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Humorous Goblet: Boot
Innsbruck (court glassworks), last quarter of the 16th century
© KHM-Museumsverband
Goblet, so-called Griffin’s Claw
Northern Germany (?), 2nd half of the 14th century
horn, silver gilded
H. 29,4 x L. 45,4 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Table Automaton featuring Diana and a Centaur
Hans Jakob I. Bachmann
Augsburg, c. 1602-1606
partly gilt silver, base: re-gilt at a later date; enamel, pearls, garnets, wood
stained black, iron
H. 39,5 x L. 32,5 x W. 18,3 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Centrepiece in the Form of a Lion-Dragon
Milan, mid-17th c.; adapted by Dionysio (ca. 1607 – 1661) and Ferdinand
Eusebio Miseroni (1639 – 1684)
Prague, 1659 – 1676
Rock crystal, silver
H. 43,6 cm, L. 52,4 cm, W. 32,7 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Christoph Gandtner
Novelty Vessel: Tantalus
Innsbruck, c. 1580/90
Clay, tin glaze
H. 26,6 cm; L. 17cm; W. 18cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
A Giant and a Dwarf (Bartlmä Bon and Thomele?)
German, last quarter of the 16th century
265 cm x 160 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Trick Chair
Germany, 2nd half of the 16th century
iron
H. 114 cm, W. 60 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
"Freydal"
Tournament book of Emperor Maximilian I.
southern Germany, c. 1512-1515
gouache
38,5 x 26,5 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Costume Armour for Foot Combat
probably made for Albrecht, Margrave of Brandenburg, Duke of Prussia
northern Germany (Brunswick?)
c. 1526
iron, leather
© KHM-Museumsverband
Playing Cards featuring Monkeys
Tyrol, c. 1580
51,5 x 41,5 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Sigmund Elsässer
Wedding Codex of Archduke Ferdinand II
Innsbruck 1582
engraving, 43 x 29,6 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
Wendelin Tiefenbrugger
Lute
Italy, late 16th century
60 cm x 22 cm x 12 cm
© KHM-Museumsverband
OPENING HOURS AND
ENTRANCE FEES
Tuesdays – Sundays, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Thursdays until 9 p.m.
June, July and August open daily!
Annual Ticket
Adults
Vienna Card
Concessions
NEW: Annual ticket under 25
Children under 19
Group ticket (p.p.)
Guided Tour
€ 34
€ 15
€ 14
€ 11
€ 19
free
€ 11
€3
Buy your online-tickets at:
https://shop.khm.at/en/ticket-shop/
CATALOGUE
An exhibition catalogue in english will be published in conjunction with
the show.
PRESS CONTACT
Nina Auinger-Sutterlüty, MAS
Head of Communication and Public Relations
T +43 1 525 24 - 4021
[email protected]
KHM-Museumsverband
Wissenschaftliche Anstalt öffentlichen Rechts
Burgring 5, 1010 Vienna
www.khm.at