Notes on the collection of early drawings owned by Karl Kühnl (1812–1871) in Lviv and Wrocław
Vol.69,No.2(2020)
Abstract
Keywords:
Karl Kühnl; collecting; drawings; Ossoliński Institute; Nikodém Čížek; Josef Winterhalder Jr.; Josef Stern; Lviv; Wrocław
Pages:
160–169
The article focuses on the art collection of Karl Kühnl (1812–1871), which from the 1870s to the end of the Second World War was managed by the Ossoliński Institute in Lviv (Lemberg). Today the collection is divided among several institutes: the Ossolineum in Wrocław, Poland, and the Vasyl Stefanyk Scientific Library and the Lviv National Gallery, both in Lviv, Ukraine. While Kühnl's collection was already highly valued by contemporaries, it has not yet been fully professionally appraised. The entire collection can in terms of its content be provisionally divided into four parts: work by central European and primarily 'Viennese' artists active mainly in the 18th century; drawings by central European artists active around the year 1600 and in the first half of the 17th century; drawings by other European schools; and younger work on paper created after 1800. The article outlines the history of the collection and the assessments made of it to date, and through several new attributions of work also reveals the possibilities this collection offers for learning about central European work on paper from the 17th and 18th centuries.
Karl Kühnl; collecting; drawings; Ossoliński Institute; Nikodém Čížek; Josef Winterhalder Jr.; Josef Stern; Lviv; Wrocław
160–169