'Habsburgs' at MIA is a fairy-tale treasury

For more than 600 years an Austrian family lived a fairy-tale life, ruling much of Europe from a gilded palace in Vienna. Through strategic marriages and successful wars, they dominated European politics, defeated the Ottoman Turks, plundered the New World, championed Catholicism, bought the best art and hired top talent to stage court pageants, paint their portraits, produce propaganda and deck the family in velvet, ermine and gold.

Then, shattered by World War I, the Austrian empire collapsed. In 1918 the last emperor was exiled.

Their story is told in "The Habsburgs: Rarely Seen Masterpieces From Europe's Greatest Dynasty," debuting this weekend at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA). It runs Feb. 15-May 10 before traveling to Houston's Museum of Fine Arts and Atlanta's High Museum of Art.

"The Habsburgs are one of the longest-serving dynasties, ruled one of the largest empires in history and had a huge impact on the art and culture of so many different countries," said MIA director Kaywin Feldman.

She declined to say what the exhibit cost, but funding came from $6.5 million that the museum raised for special exhibits and events marking its 2015 centennial. The U.S. government provided indemnification to help offset the cost of insuring the Austrian treasures on tour.

"It is the most expensive show in my tenure here," said Feldman, the museum's director since 2008.

"Habsburgs" is a cornucopia of spectacular art and royal regalia, much of it never shown in the United States previously. It features 93 items on loan from Vienna's Kunsthistoriches (Art and History) Museum. Besides a pair of armored knights jousting on full-sized horse mannequins, it includes a gilded 18th-century carriage and an ornately carved sleigh pulled by horses in harnesses decorated with ostrich-feather crests, golden bells and embroidered velvet.

Assembled over centuries, the Habsburg art collection is a who's who of European Old Masters including Arcimboldo, Canaletto, Caravaggio, Durer, Giorgione, Holbein, Tintoretto, Titian and Velazquez. One of the exhibit's most alluring paintings is Correggio's "Jupiter and Io," which depicts the nymph Io being seduced by the god Jupiter disguised as a smoky cloud embracing her with a teddy-bear paw.

"It is an astonishing painting, still so shocking and dangerously erotic today," Feldman said. "You can tell exactly what's going on, but it's so strange and quite amazing that the artist managed to paint it so convincingly."

And then there are the exotica — ancient Roman cameos, a 400-year-old rhinoceros-horn goblet, a rock-crystal chalice, a walrus tusk sculpture, huge seashells mounted on golden stands, tapestries, scientific instruments, antique rifles, gold-plated platters, tournament armor and intricately decorated helmets.

"What differentiates this exhibit from other shows is that we tie every single object to a member of the Habsburg family and their impact as a patron of art," said Eike Schmidt, the museum's German-born curator of decorative arts. "It's not just the 'Habsburgs' Top 100' works. It explains how people in the past approached art collecting and the function that art fulfilled, so it's far more than just flashy objects."

An animated map of Europe at the entrance shows how the Habsburg empire grew or shrank in size from 1300 to 1900. At various times, family members ruled Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Corsica, Malta, Spain and parts of France, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands. Through the clan's Spanish branch, the family also tapped into wealth from Central and South America.

A gold-mounted shell from the South Seas suggests the family's wealth, of course, but also the reach of the empire and its sovereignty over the natural and man-made worlds.

Greco-Roman deities cavorting in the paintings linked the Habsburgs to antiquity, certified their erudition and brought erotic sizzle to the court.

Gem-encrusted crucifixes and paintings such as Caravaggio's dramatic 1602 "Christ Crowned With Thorns" and Rubens' 1614 "Lamentation of Christ" affirmed the Habsburgs' role as defenders of the Catholic faith at a time when it was challenged by Protestant dissenters and under assault by the Ottoman Turks.

"In Italy the Medici were tiny politically, but their art patronage brought them to the top; in France the Bourbons were tremendously influential, but they put all their money into weapons and were negligible in the arts," Schmidt said. "It was the Habsburgs who really united a collecting passion with political power."

All were keen promoters of the Habsburg brand. Maximilian I, for instance, hired Albrecht Durer and a team of artists who produced an extraordinary woodcut of a "Triumphal Arch" depicting the emperor, his ancestors and his battlefield exploits. Printed from 95 hand-carved wooden blocks, it's more than 11 feet tall — the largest woodcut ever made — and was an imperial propaganda tool. Copies were sent to courts and cities throughout Europe to tout Habsburg power.

"These glorious objects don't just speak, they sing," Feldman said. "They really are astonishing."

Mary Abbe • 612-673-4431