Popular Printed Graphics

While graphic work can be found in all of the Wien Museum’s collections, the "History and City Life" collection also includes a special section on "Popular Printed Graphics" that has developed over the years. This contains printed matter produced by leading Viennese publishing houses between the late 18^th and early 20^th centuries.

During the Enlightenment, graphic objects became mass-produced items that were aimed at a bourgeois audience, not least due to the invention of new printing techniques such as lithography (1798). Almanacs, playing cards, or greeting cards transmitted new socio-political ideas while also often documenting everyday political events. In the form of cut-out sheets, board and card games, and puzzles for young people, these graphic products often had instructive characters.

The most outstanding 18^th century items in the Wien Museum include the etchings, almanacs, fans, and games produced by the engraver and publisher Hieronymus Löschenkohl (1753-1807) as well as the sheets from the Artaria publishing house. The Artaria series "Aussichten der Residenzstadt Wien" (Views of the Imperial City of Vienna, 1779-89) by Carl Schütz, Johann Ziegler, and Laurenz Janscha is now regarded as one of Vienna's key sources for images of this period. The most important documents from the Biedermeier period are the many "Mandl" sheets and other sheets of images, games, and theatrical flyers produced by the publisher Matthäus Trentsensky.

The collection contains many items involving playing cards and paper theaters. These include sets of cards recalling the Ottoman siege of 1683, Löschenkohl’s "Das Musikalische Kartenspiel" (The Musical Card Game, 1806), tarot cards entitled "Industrie und Glück" (Industry and Fortune) produced by the playing card manufacturers Piatnik (Fluch Collection), and “Constitutionstarock” (Constitutional Tarot), a caricature from the revolution of 1848. Items related to paper theater include elements from Trentsensky’s "Large Theater" and "Mignon Theater" and the Botuschan collection, which largely consists of German and Czech publishing products.

Illustrations from books and magazines form an additional focus of the collection. These include the copperplates for the "Eipeldauer-Briefen" (Eipeldauer Letters, 1785-1821), the illustrated sections of the "Wiener Theaterzeitung" from the Vormärz (pre-March) period, and original sketches by famous illustrators such as Theodor Zasche. There are also smaller collections with devotional images and pictures of saints and greeting and friendship cards. The most impressive examples of the latter are cards from the Neoclassicist and Biedermeier periods that could move as a result of built-in mechanics and were regarded as a "Viennese specialty".