Cataloque raisonné of Roman Baroque paintings in the KHM

The Painting Collection of the Kunsthistorisches Museum has its place besides the nine largest and most comprehensive institutions of its kind. One of the Vienna museum`s strengths is the completeness of its Italian baroque holdings, scarcely to be approached elsewhere. Among comparable institutions, the National Gallery in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington have set international standards with the publications of their Italian baroque paintings. The Louvre, too, has produced an exemplary edition of the paintings of seventeenth century Bolognese School, published in 1996. No art-historical and scientific catalogue has yet been provided for the complete collection of Italian paintings in the KHM. The production is now being planned of a catalogue raisonné in five volumes, as distinct from a general "catalogue sommaire", of the collection of Italian baroque painting (approx. 600 items). The first volume to be prepared comprises painting in Rome during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, namely, the so called caravaggesque painting which was linked to Caravaggio in Rome and which then spread abroad from Rome (Northern and Western European painters in Rome are also to be included), as well as the art produced in Rome during the rest of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century period. It encompasses the art- historical and scientific investigation and specification of all paintings, exhibited or otherwise; this will amount to around 147 pictures. The extensive groundwork done by W. Prohaska as well as an association with an EU project on international Caravaggism suggested the choice of this field as first within the scope of the project. The academic work devoted to this part of the catalogue lays special emphasis on the examination of the material condition of the pictures (involving the participation of specialised Austrian and Italian conservators ); on the investigation of the provenance of paintings before their entry into the Habsburg collection, a topic which has not yet been sufficiently clarified (archival investigations, especially in Vienna, Rome, Florence and Naples); and finally on research addressing questions of taste (for instance the preferences of the Imperial House with relation to the aristocratic collector personalities such as the Czernins, the Liechtensteins, the Harrachs, Prince Eugene of Savoy and others).

The primary aim of our two and a half year research project was to undergo an academic investigation of a group of paintings held and classified by the Kunsthistorisches Museum. The concept led to an all-inclusive exploration of the Italian-born movement known as the `carravagesque` that began in Rome in following of Caravaggio`s influential artistic career, and spread throughout northern and western Europe towards the middle of the 17th century. In addition to the general historical questions raised in our venture (such as attribution, dating and chronology), the intention of our research was to focus an the material condition of individual works through technological analyses of individual paintings. Consequently, a number of specialized scientists an a national (e.g. from our in-house restoration laboratory) and international (e.g. the Roman group EMMEBICI) basis were invited to cooperate, enabling a variety of examinations and an extensive accumulation of results. These analyses performed an contemporary roman pictures led to the emergence of certain peculiarities concerning those of Caravaggio`s followers in question. The focus of our research was therefore placed an previously unknown provenances of the paintings (mainly from the Habsburger collection). A hitherto unknown inventory of the 17th century from Ambras (held at the Austrian National Library/ÖNB) was helpful to unseal the history of around 300 paintings. The archival research and international discussions undergone during this time have thoroughly enriched our ever-growing knowledge of the history of the collection. By means of Dr. Prohaska`s guest professorship in Rome (at the Bibliotheca Hertziana/Max Planck-Gesellschaft) as well as numerous exchanges of discoveries with diverse colleagues from academic boards, and in cooperation with Dr. Swoboda`s guest scholarship in Florence (at the Kunsthistorisches Institut/Max Planck-Gesellschaft), the project succeeded in solving a number of recurring uncertainties, some of which have already been introduced to the academic community via lectures and publications.