3 February to 26 June 2011

In the seventeenth century, ivory work reached its culmination in Vienna in the days of Prince Karl Eusebius of Liechtenstein and Emperor Leopold I. The exhibition focused on this heyday of ivory art. It was prepared together with the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna and featured thirty-six splendid, virtuoso carvings impressively documenting the artisans’ great skill, among them masterly executed statuettes, pitchers, goblets, tankards, and bowls of ivory, objects created for display in so-called cabinets of curiosities and not intended for any practical use.

The show comprised works by the most famous ivory artists of the Baroque period, such as Adam Lenckhardt, Johann Caspar Schenck, and Matthias Steinl. It centered on the question why it was ivory of all materials which was preferred for small sculptures in the Baroque era, particularly in Vienna.

Curators Dr. Maraike Bückling (Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung) and Dr. Sabine Haag (Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna)
Research assistant Eva Maria Breisig, M.A.
Sponsored by Georg und Franziska Speyer’sche Hochschulstiftung, Reiner Winkler Stiftung, Stadt Frankfurt am Main
Media partners Frankfurter Rundschau, Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main, Lorey
Culture partner hr2-kultur