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The Universalmuseum Joanneum is delighted to see a valuable enrichment of its holdings of old masters, one that is rare on this scale today: thirty paintings, mainly by Dutch masters from the 17th century (the much acclaimed “Golden Age”) arrived at the Alte Galerie in the form of a long-term loan from the Dr Hans Riegel collection in 2018.
The Alte Galerie took this loan as an opportunity to reorganise the permanent exhibition at Schloss Eggenberg. It opened in new guise on 25th April 2019.
Kaiserschild Foundation
Rembrandt’s Dutch contemporaries
This generous gesture by a private patron makes it possible for the public in Graz to become acquainted with Rembrandt’s Dutch contemporaries on a much broader basis than ever before. To them we owe our still valid idea of painting as a form of art that has expanded into numerous fields of expertise such as portraiture, genre, landscapes and still lifes.
In landscape painting, everyday scenes and still lifes also lay the artistic preferences of the collector Dr Hans Riegel. It is from his collection that the Alte Galerie has received precious additions which perfectly complement its own holdings of Dutch masterpieces: the collection’s existing treasures including those by Brueghel, Josse de Momper or Herri met de Bles are now joined in the Alte Galerie for the first time by other illustrious names. They include Pieter Claesz, a pioneer of modern still lifes, and Aert van der Neer, who redefined the category of the night landscape for the Netherlands and is represented here with a large winter landscape, as are Jan Miense Molenaer and Josse de Momper. Important masters of genre painting appear with a street scene by Adriaen van Ostade and two lovers by Jan Steen, the leading master of the moralising-satirical genre. Similarly well-known are Jan van Goyen, Salomon van Ruysdael, Willem van Aelst and David Teniers. They all have a permanent place in European art history and in the world’s most important museums.
The Kaiserschild Foundation
Co-proprietor of the HARIBO confectionery company Dr Hans Riegel, who died in 2013, founded the Dr Hans Riegel Foundation in Germany in 1987. It has been a charitable organisation since 2000. In Austria, he founded a second charitable foundation, the Kaiserschild Foundation, in 2007.
Riegel assigned four statutory purposes to his foundations: education, research and teaching, the visual arts and charity. The Austrian Kaiserschild Foundation is based in Hieflau. By giving the Foundation this name, Riegel expressed his deep attachment to Styria and the state of Austria. (The Kaiserschild is a broadly shaped mountain on the northern edge of the Eisenerz Alps).
With its commitment to realising its statutory purposes, the non-profit private Kaiserschild foundation promotes innovative projects and sustainable initiatives in the education sector. As a core task of the Foundation, Riegel insisted on the furtherance of young talent in the scientific and technical fields, so that a large part of the Foundation’s expenditure goes into these areas. His holistic view of society led Riegel to include in the statutes both pivotal aspects of education, research and teaching as well as the promotion and preservation of art.
Riegel was extremely interested in the visual arts and had his own collection of paintings and sculptures. The part of the collection dealing with 17th-century art now goes on permanent loan to the Alte Galerie, and the one comprising 19th-century art is expected to go to the Museumscenter Leoben.
