Friday Nov 29, 2019 – Vienna Caravaggio (written Dec 4,2019)

Sue allowed me to take a one day trip to see an exhibition of Caravaggio & Bernini works in Vienna. There are ten paintings by Caravaggio in the exhibit, I haven’t seen two of these paintings. One “Narcissus”, a painting ‘attributed’ to Caravaggio is from a museum in Rome that we’ve visited three times. Each time we’ve visited the painting has been on loan to exhibits at other museums, just like this one. This painting is ALSO on the 1001 list, so this will be a double bonus. The second painting “Portrait of Maffeo Barberini”Authored by Caravaggio is from a private collection in Florence, and I’ve never seen it listed in other exhibitions. The experts agree that this painting IS by Caravaggio.  This is why I HAD to go. It was going to be a one day trip: flight to Vienna at 7:00 and return flight from Vienna at 20:45. It was going to be a long day. I left the house at 4:00 and returned at 23:45. The only glitch I had was catching the train from the Vienna airport into town. I saw the train I wanted was due at 9:18 on track #1. I waited on track #1, but didn’t see my train. Short story, the trains can be on EITHER track #1 or #2. So I had to wait another half hour to get the right train to take me to Wien Mitte, a train station. There I transferred to the U3 subway that got me to within walking distance of the museum. I just walked onto the subway without seeing a ticket machine or a gate. Even the locals weren’t swiping a travel card or punching a ticket. I just assumed that the subway was free. On my trip home while talking to a Vienna resident in the airport I learned that the subway isn’t free. There are agents on the train that will check if you have a ticket. I was lucky, I could have been fined.

I made it to the museum and went right to the Caravaggio exhibit. The paintings were in five galleries and I planned to be very meticulous going in order through the exhibit. Well, so much for my plans.  The tour groups in front of paintings and other goofs like me put an end to my plans. So I went to the two Caravaggio’s I hadn’t seen. After that I went through the rooms getting the photos as space opened up. It turns out that I didn’t take any photos in Room 5! Can you believe it? Photographs were allowed for most works of art, but NOT ALL. Apparently some of the donors did not want photos taken of their painting or sculpture. They didn’t want photos to be used by others on the internets or for profit. I asked one of the attendants if I could take a photo of the room.  She told me that was okay, because the photo won’t have enough detail. This is why I have used photos from the internets for some of the works.  These two paintings bring my total to 58 of 65 Caravaggio’s that experts agree are by Caravaggio, and 11 of 21 “attributed” to Caravaggio i.e. not all experts agree that Caravaggio painted them. So I’ve got a few more Caravaggio’s to track down.

There was another exhibition at this museum of paintings by Jan van Eyck that did NOT allow ANY photographs of the paintings. But don’t despair, I could take photos of the information cards. To be nice, I haven’t included these in this album. I may eventually match the cards with a painting from the internets, but for now I’m only showing the three van Eyck’s in the exhibition. There are 31 paintings by van Eyck and there is one in this exhibit I hadn’t seen, “Madonna and Child at the Fountain” from Antwerp. After seeing this one, I’ve seen 24 of the 31 van Eyck’s. The three van Eyck’s that were on display. Two are from the Kunsthistorisches that we’ve seen on previous visits, and that I was able to photograph in the museum. The other paintings in this small exhibition were by Rogier van der Weyden, Gerard David, and Hans Memling offering a glimpse of the art produced during the reign of Duke Philipp the Good, when the Burgundian Low Countries witnessed a unique flowering of courtly and urban civilization. Jan van Eyck (c.1390-1441), was the favorite court painter of Philipp the Good, duke of Burgundy (1396-1467).

After going through these two exhibitions I was off to the collection of the Kunsthisorsiches Museum’s collection. The museum has paintings from several lists that I am pursuing. There are eight 1001 paintings at the museum, and we’ve seen six before today, and one of the two we haven’t seen on display today.

Friday Nov 29, 2019 – Vienna Caravaggio