Biedermeier - The Invention of Simplicity" explores first and foremost the Albertina's beginnings: In 1820 Archduke Charles, when moving into the palace of the Albertina, commissioned the epoch's most comprehensive and at the same time most radical refurbishment and interior decoration project in Central Europe. In contrast to the opulent splendour of the French Empire style and Neo-Classicism's historicising reception of antiquity, this novel decorative style is marked by a renunciation of ornament and a reduction to geometric basic form: this applies to furniture, as well as to porcelain, silver, and glass. After the Congress of Vienna, this "invention of simplicity" - both as a style and as an ethic attitude - disseminated from the capital and residential town to other art centres in Central and Northern Europe: Goethe's Weimar, Munich, Berlin, and Copenhagen.

By means of 450 exhibits from nearly 100 lenders, this exhibition tells about the early history of modernity, whose origins are firmly rooted in Europe's major princely courts. The most important lenders include the Danske Kunstindustrimuseet Kopenhagen, Museum für Angewandte Kunst Prag, die Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg Potsdam as well as the Vienna Hofmobiliendepot.

The exhibition is a collaborative effort between the Albertina in Vienna and the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Deutsches Historisches Museum in Berlin, and the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

(The dates for the Louvre are placeholders at this time).

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