 |
| Charles Joseph Natoire Italian autumn landscape with Monte Porzio and an Offering to Pan 1763 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Joseph Anton Koch Oedipus and Antigone leave Thebes 1797 wash drawing Albertina, Vienna |
Duke Albert of Saxe-Teschen (1738-1822) began collecting European drawings and prints on an ambitious scale in the 1770s. When he died in 1822 the albums in his Viennese palace contained about 14,000 drawings and 200,000 prints. That core was expanded by his heirs in the 19th century, and then ultimately also by the Austrian state, when historic Hapsburg property (including the building and collections of Duke Albert's 'Albertina') was nationalized in 1918. Today the museum holds approximately 50,000 European drawings and 900,000 prints.
 |
| Hubert Robert Architectural Fantasy 1760 drawing, watercolor Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Canaletto View through Baroque colonnade into a garden ca. 1760-68 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Caspar David Friedrich View of Arkona with rising moon ca. 1805-06 wash drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Claude Lorrain Tiber landscape with Castel Sant'Angelo in background before 1682 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Claude Lorrain Floodplain with watering place ca. 1640 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Claude Lorrain Landscape with Rest on the Flight into Egypt 1660 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Claude Lorrain Tiber landscape north of Rome with dark cloudy sky before 1682 wash drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Claude Lorrain Group of trees and resting sheperd before 1682 drawing Albertina,Vienna |
 |
| Jean-Honoré Fragonard Cypress avenue at Villa d`Este in Tivoli 1774 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Nicolas Poussin Two silver birches, the front one fallen ca. 1629 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
The gorgeous drawing above – "two silver birches, the front one fallen" – still carries Poussin's name on its label at the Albertina. Duke Albert bought it himself as by Poussin in 1794. Earlier in the 18th century it had belonged, in succession, to two famous Parisian connoisseurs, Pierre Crozat and Pierre-Jean Mariette, who both also owned a number of other similar vertical-format landscape drawings without figures and in Poussin's style. "Until 1963, these drawings barely interested specialists, who accepted them almost as a matter of course as works of Poussin. Then, in 1963, John Shearman had the courage to create a new category for forty-two, of which eighteen – the finest – must have belonged to the same dispersed sketchbook that he attributed to Poussin's brother-in-low Gaspard Dughet." Most scholars today agree with Shearman – largely for technical reasons – that the rejected drawings cannot be by Poussin. In Gaspard Dughet's honor, these rejected drawings are now sometimes referred to as the "G Group," but few researchers are convinced by Dughet's claim either. More often, this mystery-artist is referred to as "The Master of the Silver Birch." Pierre Rosenberg, quoted above from his book Poussin and Nature (Yale, 2008), theorizes that "The Master of the Silver Birch" was neither Italian nor French, but from one of the fluctuating and poorly-documented communities of "northern artists" (Flemings, Germans, Danes, Bohemians, and many others) always present in 17th-century Rome.
 |
| Cornelis Vroom Forest road with two horse-drawn carts ca. 1638-42 drawing Albertina, Vienna |
 |
| Cornelis Vroom Trees behind wooden fence ca. 1638-42 drawing Albertina, Vienna |