page_title: Christian von Mechel
section_title: Participation in development of Imperial Art Gallery
hierarchical_section_title: Christian von Mechel / Business venture / Participation in development of Imperial Art Gallery
caption_attribution_description: English: Night photograph of the Upper Belvedere palace in Vienna, Austria. Español: Foto nocturna del palacio Palacio Belvedere en Viena, Austria.
context_page_description: Christian von Mechel was a Swiss engraver, publisher and art dealer. He developed a broad trade in art, through business connections throughout northern and central Europe; although the French Revolutionary Wars ruined him financially, he started over in 1805 in Berlin.
  Although trained in art and copper etching, he found his niche as a purveyor of art. Joseph II employed him to convert the private Habsburg collection to one available for public display. He was one of the first curators to employ schools of art as a mnenomic system of organization.
context_section_description: In 1776 Maria Theresa and her son, Emperor Joseph II decided to transfer the k.u.k. Gemäldegalerie ("Imperial Picture Gallery") from the Imperial Stables — a part of the city's Hofburg Imperial Palace — to the Upper Belvedere, and reflected an eighteenth-century trend shaped by the Enlightenment. To display art to the public required also a shift in perspective.  Art, including sculpture, paintings, lithographs, drawings, etc.  had been considered for years the domain of the upper classes for who it was deemed suitable.  To display such treasures to the hoi polloi required, the cultured and refined classes believed, explanations to the unlettered and uninformed. Consequently, Joseph entrusted Mechel with the organization, cataloging and display of his large and important collection.  To prepare the art for exhibit, Joseph wished Mechel to organize, catalog.  Mechel applied  a scientific perspective to organize works of art by masters, time periods, and schools that was emulated, copied, and expanded throughout European art collectors and their curators. and display what became known as the Imperial Picture Gallery for public showing. The gallery opened five years later, making it one of the first public museums in the world.  The opening of the Musée du Louvre during the French Revolution in 1793 as a public museum included much of the former French royal collection marked an important stage in the development of public access to art by transferring the ownership to a republican state; but it was a continuation of trends already well established.  Michel was also instrumental in organizing and cataloging this material.
caption: Upper Belvedere at night
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