Akademie der bildenden Künste, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna_Paintings Collection, The Masterpieces

Akademie der bildenden Künste, Academy of Fine Arts,
Vienna
Paintings Collection, The Masterpieces

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych
1504-08
Mixed technique on panel, 163 x 128 cm (central
panel), 167 x 60 cm (each wing)
Akademie der bildenden Künste, Vienna

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych (left wing)
1504-08
Mixed technique on panel, 167 x 60
cm
Akademie der Bildenden Künste,
Vienna

BOSCH, Hieronymus
(detail)
1504-08
Mixed technique on panel, 167 x 60
cm
Akademie der Bildenden Künste,
Vienna

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych (central panel)
1504-08
Mixed technique on panel, 163 x 128 cm

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych (central panel) (detail)
1504-08

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych (right wing)
1504-08
Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych (right wing) (detail)
1504-08
Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Vienna

BOTTICELLI, Sandro
Virgin and Child with Two Angels
c. 1490
Tempera on poplar panel, diameter 115 cm

BOTTICELLI, Sandro
Virgin and Child with Two Angels (detail)
c. 1490
Tempera on poplar panel, diameter 115 cm

BOUTS, Dieric the Elder
Coronation of the Virgin
c. 1450
Panel, 83 x 86 cm

Coronation of the Virgin (detail)
c. 1450
Panel, 83 x 86 cm

CRANACH, Lucas the Elder
The Holy Kinship with a Self-Portrait (detail)
1510-12
Tempera on wood, 89 x 71 cm

RUBENS, Peter Paul
Boreas Abducting Oreithyia
c. 1615
Oil on wood, 146 x 140 cm

RUBENS, Peter Paul
Boreas Abducting Oreithyia (detail)
c. 1615
Oil on wood, 146 x 140 cm

Lucretia
1532
Oil and tempera on red beechwood, 38 x 25
cm

Lucretia (detail)
1532
Oil and tempera on red beechwood, 38 x 25
cm

The Ill-Matched Lovers
1531
Tempera on wood

The Ill-Matched Lovers (detail)
1531
Tempera on wood

Akademie der bildenden Künste, Academy of Fine
Arts,
Vienna, Paintings Collection, The Masterpieces
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The Ill-Matched Lovers
The subject of the Ill-Matched Couple was a long-running favourite in the Cranach workshop; more than 40 versions of it are known.
An old man in search of amorous adventures has drawn the young lady close to him and his desire blinded him to the fact that the young woman is only interested in the
content of his purse, into which she is furtively delving as he caresses her.

BOTTICELLI, Sandro
Virgin and Child with Two Angels
In the fifteenth century the tondo format was preferred for pictures for private devotion in the city of Florence. From the mid-century onward tondi painted on wood
gradually ousted the earlier reliefs. the genre reached its apex in the 1480s with Botticelli's harmoniously elegant compositions. The tondo in Vienna was probably
made with the assistance of Botticelli's populous workshop.

Coronation of the Virgin
This panel was probably the central panel of an altarpiece the other parts of which are lost.
In contrast with the earlier representations of the coronation, in which the Virgin being crowned by Christ alone, here the crown is held by God the Father and God the
Son, with the dove of the Holy Ghost hovering above.

The Holy Kinship with a Self-Portrait
Cranach repeatedly incorporated the portraits of his patrons into his altarpieces. He ascribed them roles in the pictorial narrative. In the Holy Kinship Cranach was both the
painter and the donor. He painted and donated this small altarpiece to commemorate his marriage. The subject of the painting is St Anne and her family, Cranach has portrayed
himself as Alpheus on the left next to Anne. In front of Cranach is his wife's wet nurse as Mary Cleophas.
The painting is signed with a winged snake.

RUBENS, Peter Paul
Boreas Abducting Oreithyia
This painting depicts an episode from Ovid's Metamorphoses. In Greek mythology Boreas is the ruler of the north wind. He is old and has flowing grey locks and wings. He loved
Oreithyia, the daughter of a legendary king of Athens and, against her will, carried her off to be his bride (Met. 6:692-722). He is shown flying away with the naked girl clasped firmly in his
hands. Putti are present playing with snowballs.
In Rubens's representation, the bodies fill the picture from one side to the other leaving no space for a sense of motion and flying.

Lucretia
The panel depicts the suicide of Lucretia after she was violated by Sextus Tarquinius, the king's son. Of all secular subjects he treated, Lucas Cranach painted this
subject the most frequently, in almost 40 versions. At first he showed her only rarely as a pure nude, either half- or full-length, usually, as the daughter of a Roman
nobleman, she appeared in a magnificent costume. However, after about twenty years, he increasingly favoured the nude version. In these works, with their black
background and floor area recalling a lunar landscape, the context of the historical-mythological event loses its significance, the nude figure taking on the abstract quality
of a personification of chastity.
Here, as in other nudes by Cranach, the painter's main interest is not in the narrative but only in the female nude. This is emphasized by placing the body before a
uniform black background.

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych
The central panel of the triptych represents the Last Judgment and the Seven Deadly Sins. The interior view of the left wing depicts the Fall of the Rebel Angels, Creation of Eve,
Fall of Man and Expulsion, while the interior view of the right wing shows Hell and the Prince of Darkness.
The inclusion of the Fall of Adam and Eve in a representation of the Last Judgment is unusual; the other two panels of the Vienna triptych depart even more from traditional
iconography. Generally Heaven was allotted the chief role in the eschatological drama. As in the altarpiece by Roger van der Weyden, it is the act of judgment which is stressed;
the judged are relegated to positions of secondary importance, and the felicity of the saved is described as fully as the pains of the lost. In Bosch's version, however, the divine
court appears small and insignificant at the top of the central panel, and very few souls are numbered among the elect. The majority of mankind has been engulfed in the
universal cataclysm which rages throughout the deep, murky landscape below.
This vast panoramic nightmare represents the earth in her final death throes, destroyed not by water as Dürer and Leonardo were to envision it, but by the fire foretold in a
thirteenth-century hymn, the sombre Dies Irae: "Day of Wrath, that day when the world dissolves in glowing ashes". Bosch was probably also influenced by the account of the
last days given in the Revelation of St John, a book which enjoyed renewed popularity in the late fifteenth century, when it was illustrated by Dürer in his famous Apocalypse
woodcuts of 1497-98. The wide valley dominating the central panel may represent the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which, on the basis of several Old Testament references (Joel
4:2,12), was traditionally thought to be the site of the Last Judgment, with the walls of the earthly Jerusalem blazing in the background. In any event, earth has become
indistinguishable from Hell, depicted on the right wing, out of which the army of Satan swarms to attack the damned; the eternity of torment has begun.
The Hell scene in the Prado Tabletop had paired off each punishment with one of the Deadly Sins. In the Last Judgment it would be difficult to identify the punishments with
specific sins. The avaricious are boiled in the great cauldron just visible beneath one of the buildings in the central panel. Around the corner, a fat glutton is forced to drink from
a barrel held by two devils; the source of his dubious refreshment can be seen squatting in the window overhead. The lascivious woman on the roof above suffers the attentions
of a lizard-like monster slithering across her loins, while being serenaded by two musical demons. On the cliffs to the right, across the river, blacksmith-devils hammer other
victims on anvils, and one is being shod like a horse; these unfortunate souls are guilty of the sin of anger.

BOSCH, Hieronymus
The left wing of the triptych represents the Paradise.
Here, across the three inner panels, appear the First and Last Things, beginning with the Fall of Man on the left
wing.
The story recounted in the second and third chapters of Genesis has been placed in a lush garden; in the
foreground we see the creation of Eve, followed by the temptation of the First Couple. In the middle distance they are
driven from the garden by an angel. The expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden is paralleled above by the expulsion
from Heaven of the Rebel Angels, who are transformed into monsters as they descend to earth. Although the revolt of
proud Lucifer and his followers is not mentioned in Genesis, it appears in Jewish legends and entered Christian
doctrine at an early age. These were the angels who sinned and whose prince, envying Adam, caused him to sin in
turn. It was further believed that Adam and Eve had been created by God in order that their offspring might fill the
places left vacant by the fallen angels. In this panel, Bosch thus depicted the entrance of sin into the world and
accounted for the necessity of the Last Judgment.
The inclusion of the Fall of Adam and Eve in a representation of the Last Judgment is unusual; the other two
panels of the Vienna triptych depart even more from traditional iconography.

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych (central panel)
This vast panoramic nightmare represents the earth in her final death throes, destroyed not by water as
Dürer and Leonardo were to envision it, but by the fire foretold in a thirteenth-century hymn, the
sombre Dies Irae: "Day of Wrath, that day when the world dissolves in glowing ashes".
Bosch was probably also influenced by the account of the last days given in the Revelation of St John,
a book which enjoyed renewed popularity in the late fifteenth century, when it was illustrated by Dürer
in his famous Apocalypse woodcuts of 1497-98.
The wide valley dominating the central panel may represent the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which, on the
basis of several Old Testament references (Joel 4:2,12), was traditionally thought to be the site of the
Last Judgment, with the walls of the earthly Jerusalem blazing in the background. In any event, earth
has become indistinguishable from Hell, depicted on the right wing, out of which the army of Satan
swarms to attack the damned; the eternity of torment has begun.

BOSCH, Hieronymus
Last Judgment Triptych (right wing)
The right wing of the triptych represents the Hell.
Bosch must have been familiar with contemporary texts describing Hell. Their influence can be seen not
only in his rendering of specific punishments, but also in the general topography of his Hell, including such
features as the burning pits and furnaces, and the lakes and rivers in which the damned are immersed. Some
of his monsters are also derived from traditional literary and visual sources. The vaguely anthropomorphic
devils occur in many earlier Last Judgment scenes. Traditional, too, are the toads, adders and dragons which
crawl over the rocks or gnaw at the vital parts of their victims.
Into this more or less conventional fauna of Hell, however, Bosch introduced new and more frightening
species whose complex forms defy precise description. Many display bizarre fusions of animal and human
elements, sometimes combined with inanimate objects. To this group belongs the bird-like monster who helps
carry a giant knife in the centre panel; his torso develops into a fish tail and two humanoid legs, shod in a pair
of jars. To the right an upturned basket darts forward on legs, a sword clutched in its mailed fist. Disembodied
heads scuttle about on stubby limbs; others possess bodies and limbs which glow in the darkness. Several
fiends blow musical instruments thrust into their hind quarters, bringing to mind the farting devil encountered
by Dante (Inferno, XXI, 139).

The earliest paintings of the collection date back to the 18th century and comprise the "admission works" of Academy members
and "prize works" by students awarded for their contributions to the annual exhibitions - works that also served as teaching
models in art lessons.
The Paintings Gallery actually came into being when, in 1822, Count Lamberg-Sprinzenstein, a Habsburg diplomat successful in
Turin and Naples, generously donated his internationally renowned collection of paintings to the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
Its initial stocks were significantly extended in the course of the 19th century, through state purchases of contemporary art but
also through numerous further donations by aristocrats and citizens alike, including the large group of works by Heinrich
Friedrich Füger, bequeathed to the Academy in 1878 by his son, or the fifty-eight paintings donated to the Academy gallery by
Johann II, Prince of Liechtenstein, between 1879 and 1925. In the 20th century, especially the significant legacies of Oskar
Kutschera-Woborsky, of Johanna and August Ritter von Albrecht Hönigschmied (1934 and 1937) and of Wolfgang von
Wurzbach-Tannenberg (1957) need to be mentioned.
The collection was further added to in the second half of the 20th century, especially through the generous contributions made
by the Association of Friends of Fine Arts, which came into being as an association of friends supporting the Paintings Gallery.
The Academy's Gallery is a veritable "Pinacotheca", a collection of paintings ranging from medieval times to the 21st century,
and today comprises close to 1,600 works. About 180 outstanding works, mostly the masterpieces from the Lamberg-
Sprinzenstein collection, are on permanent display, and include The Last Judgment, a triptych by Hieronymus Bosch showing
the painter's phantasmagorical visions of Judgment Day, the Coronation of the Virgin Mary by Dirc Bouts as well as main works
by Lucas Cranach the Elder, but also masterpieces by Peter Paul Rubens and Anthonis van Dyck.
One of the collection's foci is, however, on Dutch painting of the 17th century with all its genres, including works by
Rembrandt, Jacob van Ruisdael or Pieter de Hooch. The first-class works of Italian schools of painters include masterpieces by
Botticelli, Titian, Giambattista Tiepolo and Francesco Guardi, to name but a few. Furthermore, the work of Heinrich Friedrich
Füger and his colleagues at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, around 1800 is strongly represented.

Akademie der bildenden Künste, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna_Paintings Collection, The Masterpieces

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Akademie der bildenden Künste, Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna_Paintings Collection, The Masterpieces