VIENNA.- The protagonists of classical myths – heroes, mortals, gods and demi-gods – are deeply embedded in our collective memory and have lost nothing of their power to fascinate. Neither the invasion of the barbarians in Late Antiquity nor Christianity could fully uproot the memory of the pagan ancient world, with the Renaissance proudly rediscovering classical civilisation. Their myths came to life again in the Renaissance and baroque paintings and frescoes that decorated sumptuous princely palaces. The European courts of the sixteenth century emphasized the erotic aspects of classical myths – among them, for example, Titian’s paintings for the studiolo in the palace at Ferrara, or his “poesie” for King Phillip II of Spain. But the Emperor Rudolf II surpassed all his predecessors by commissioning a huge number of mythological compositions from his court artists Bartholomäus Spranger, Hans von Aachen, Joseph Heintz the elder, and Dirk de Quade.

For his private quarters Rudolf II preferred paintings depicting scenes from classical literature, with Ovid, Virgil and Homer supplying the stories. Emperor Rudolf II was personally involved in the development of the late-mannerist style that characterized the art produced at his court in Prague and that was inspired by the works of Correggio and Parmigianino, its proponents favouring a refinement and elegance well suited to erotic mythological subjects. Art at the time no longer saw classical heroes as fearsome powers but as personifications of ideal, perfectly-formed humans.

The Picture Gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, whose history dates back to the sixteenth and seventeenth century, with many of its holdings once part of the imperial collection amassed in Prague, is one of Europe’s oldest and most important collections. By the late eighteenth century, most of the collection as we see it today had been assembled. The Picture Gallery is celebrated for retaining its character as an exquisite princely collection that focuses on portraits as well as mythological and religious paintings.

The concept of the exhibition is based, on the one hand, on the Kunsthistorisches Museum’s rich holdings of works of art depicting mythological scenes and, on the other hand, on the biography of Wilfried Seipel, the Museum’s Director General since 1990, an Egyptologist, archaeologist and art-historian in whose academic career questions of the reception of classical ideas have featured prominently. Thus it was also Wilfried Seipel’s idea to mark the end of his tenure at the helm of the Kunsthistorisches Museum by asking each of the museum’s most important partner-institutions to loan a great work-of-art that deals with the myth of antiquity, and to create a dialogue between these works and works from the Museum’s own holdings. This means that loans from the Rijksmuseum, the Louvre, the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum, the Picture Gallery in Dresden, and Frankfurt’s Städel will engage in an exciting dialogue with works by Correggio, Parmigianino, Titian and Spranger, as well as selected Kunstkammer-objects such as Cellini’s “Saliera” or the bronzes of Giambologna, from the collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum.