Bestandsaufnahme der Deutschen und Schweizer Zeichnungen des 19. Jahrhunderts in der Graphischen Sammlung Albertina (Quellen und Literaturrecherchen)

It was the primary intention of the project to establish, on the basis of scholarly criteria, an inventory of drawings by German and Swiss artists born between 1780 and 1870 represented in the Albertina. In this way, source material on 19th-century art unpublished to date was to be made available both to the world of experts as well as to a broader circle of visitors to the Albertina; in addition, the judgement on previously published works was supposed to be revised in the light of modern art historical research. Moreover, scientific inventories provide a foundation for the daily work of a museum. They constitute a prerequisite for the meticulous fulfillment of the essential tasks of a collection. The direction a museum takes in connection with its purchase activities, the certainty with which it obtains and administers its acquisitions, and the accuracy with which it meets the demands of an information centre will ultimately depend on them. The objective of compiling a critical historical documentation for each single work figuring in the relevant holdings of the collection and of describing it in a more comprehensive context called for the correct attribution of the work in question to one or the other artist and for dating it as precisely as possible, but also for an interpretation of its iconographic content and for a definition of its function, all based on comparison with latest scientific findings and on the thorough study of historical sources. The holdings that had to be investigated comprised about 1,100 drawings, 16 sketch books, two albums and a gift casket. Including the sheets that have come down to us in bound form, the total number of drawings thus amounted to approximately 2,770, executed by about 280 individual artists. Due to profound changes within the institutional framework of the project and a delay of the project launch of two years caused by external circumstances, research into the works executed by c. 1850 had to be restricted with the exception of the drawings by Munich artists (with a final result of altogether 988 drawings by 124 individual artists). Nevertheless it was possible to establish definite findings for sheets by such renowned artists as Andreas Achenbach, Karl Buchholtz, Anselm Feuerbach, Max Klinger, Adolph Menzel, Adolph Schrödter, Wilhelm Busch, Lovis Corinth, Ferdinand Hodler, Wassilij Kandinsky, Ludwig Knaus, Wilhelm Leibl, Max Liebermann, Hans von Marées, Max Slevogt, Wilhelm Steinhausen, Hand Thoma, and Franz Stuck. In this context, reattributions that turned out to be necessary in the course of our investigations deserve special mentioning, concerning drawings by Friedrich Overbeck (now Ferdinand Anton Krüger), a sheet by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (now Ludwig Ferdinand Schnorr von Carolsfeld), one work by Karl Philipp Fohr (Theodor Rehbenitz), one by the Brothers Riepenhausen (Joseph Sutter), one by Johann Christoph Erhard (Moritz Schwind), two sheets by Heinrich Reinhold (J. Chr. Erhard) as well as the attribution of a so far anonymous drawing to Reinhold, and two sheets by Eduard Bendemann (Rudolf Bendemann).