Collecting for the Future

It includes over one million objects, numbers among the world’s most important collections of graphic art, and was founded 250 years ago: the collection of the Albertina Museum. This onceprivate collection has long since become a world-class museum. That it was Albert of Saxe-Teschen who laid its cornerstone in 1776 is well known. This exhibition, however, sheds light specifically on female contributions to this world-famous collection for the first time. The focus here is on Marie Christine, the favorite daughter of Empress Maria Theresia, and how she worked together with her husband Albert to build the collection in a systematic manner. It is therefore the collection’s beginnings and the collectors’ respective motives that are explored, here. One of the highlights of the anniversary exhibition is arguably the most famous work of art in the collection, Albrecht Dürer’s