Celebration!

In 2016 the Kunsthistorisches Museum celebrates its 125^th anniversary. To commemorate this birthday we are hosting an important special exhibition on celebrations and festivities with artworks from all our collections as well as major loans from national and international collections, among them Goya’s “La gallina ciega” from the Prado, and a designer outfit by Alexander McQueen from the V&A Museum in London.

The exhibition focuses on celebrations and how they evolved over time; it looks at various aspects of European festivities from the Renaissance until the French Revolution - at court, in towns and cities, and in the country. Festivities always mark a state of exception during which normal rules temporarily do not apply. The courtly banquet with its pomp and circumstance, which included dancing and music, forms the centre of the show; other sections feature out-of-doors celebrations to mark coronations, weddings or births but also staged during Carnival, church fairs or on market days.