iTheatermuseum (Palais Lobkowitz)Innere Stadt
Bernini, Painter and Sculptor
A KHM show at Palais Lobkowitz built around a Portrait of an Old Man newly attributed to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, with about ten international loans.
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Preview: written before the show opened
The old man's white hair is a mess and his mouth hangs slightly open. KHM curator Gudrun Swoboda says those lips were modelled the way a sculptor shapes clay. The portrait came to the museum in 1920 as a Philippe de Champaigne, went into a storeroom in 1989, and has been credited to five painters. Swoboda now says Bernini painted the face, around 1670.
That's a bold call: fewer than 20 paintings are accepted as his, and he's thought to have stopped painting around 1650. You get to test it against about ten international loans, including the Uffizi's self-portrait painting and a self-portrait drawing from the Royal Collection. Thirty-seven years in a storeroom, then a possible Bernini: the best argument yet for keeping your Kellerabteil.
Expect one picture argued over, not a Bernini survey. A scientific study found two hands: Swoboda gives the weaker black coat to another painter, possibly one of Bernini's sons. The show is at Palais Lobkowitz, and KHM hasn't published prices yet.
Look for
The old man's face
Look at the moustache, which Swoboda calls "sculpting with the brush", and the short strokes that build up the face the way a sculptor models clay.
The black coat
Compare the finely painted head and collar with the flatter black garment and right shoulder, which a scientific study says were painted by a second hand.
The Royal Collection self-portrait drawing
Bernini's own drawn face from 1675 to 1680, with the same steep light from above, lively collar and alert gaze that Swoboda sees in the Vienna portrait.
Good for
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
- Out-Of-Town Guests
Also at Theatermuseum (Palais Lobkowitz)
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Image credits
8
- Bernini, Painter and SculptorKHM-Museumsverband
- Otto Meets AlbertinaCourtesy of Albertina
- Picasso - Bacon: What It Feels Like to Be Human© Succession Picasso / Bildrecht, Vienna 2026, © Foto: bpk/Nationalgalerie, SMB, Museum Berggruen/ Jens Ziehe
- Her Story: Women Artists of the AlbertinaCourtesy of Albertina
- Theatermuseum (Palais Lobkowitz)Gryffindor / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.5
- AlbertinaC.Stadler/Bwag, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- State Hall of the Austrian National Library (Prunksaal)Mirej / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 AT
- Jewish Museum Vienna (Jüdisches Museum Wien)Sonja Bachmayer / Jewish Museum Vienna, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0