Austria Banknotes 20 Schilling banknote 1986 Moritz Michael Daffinger
National Bank of Austria - Österreichische Nationalbank
Obverse: Portrait of the Austrian miniature painter and sculptor Moritz Michael Daffinger (1790-1849). Coat of arms of Austria at upper left.
Reverse: The art museum Albertina in Vienna.
Watermark: Stylised eagle from Austrian coat of arms and parallel vertical lines.
Original size: 123 x 62 mm.
Designer: Robert Kalina.
Introduced: 19. October 1988. Withdrawn: 28. February 2002.
Austria banknotes - Austria paper money
1982-1988 Issue
20 Schilling 50 Schilling 100 Schilling
Moritz Michael Daffinger
Moritz Michael Daffinger (25 January 1790 – 21 August 1849) was an Austrian miniature painter and sculptor.
He was born in Vienna, the son of Johann Daffinger (1748–1796), a painter at the local porcelain manufactory. The eleven-year-old likewise was accepted as an apprentice and later went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts, where he attended painting lessons with Heinrich Füger. His specialty remained painting on china.
From 1809 he worked only on portraits, specializing in miniature painting on ivory. In 1812 was employed as a portraitist by the Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich and became administrated the extensive portrait collection of Metternich's third wife Princess Melanie. He was influenced by Jean-Baptiste Isabey and even stronger by the English portrait painter Thomas Lawrence, who visited Vienna in 1819. In his late years he concentrated on the painting of flowers.
Daffinger died in 1849 during a cholera epidemic in Vienna and was buried in the St. Marx Cemetery. In 1912 his mortal remains were transferred to an Ehrengrab in the Vienna Zentralfriedhof. Daffinger left more than a thousand portraits were mostly owned by the Austrian imperial House of Habsburg-Lorraine.
Albertina
The Albertina is a museum in the Innere Stadt (First District) of Vienna, Austria. It houses one of the largest and most important print rooms in the world with approximately 65,000 drawings and approximately 1 million old master prints, as well as more modern graphic works, photographs and architectural drawings. Apart from the graphics collection the museum has recently acquired on permanent loan two significant collections of Impressionist and early 20th-century art, some of which will be on permanent display. The museum also houses temporary exhibitions.
The Albertina was erected on one of the last remaining sections of the fortifications of Vienna, the Augustian Bastion. Originally, the Hofbauamt (Court Construction Office), which had been built in the second half of the 17th century, stood in that location. In 1744 it was refurbished by the director of the Hofbauamt, Emanuel Teles Count Silva-Tarouca, to become his palace; it was therefore also known as Palais Taroucca. The building was later taken over by Duke Albert of Saxen-Teschen who used it as his residence. He later brought his graphics collection there from Brussels, where he had acted as the governor of the Habsburg Netherlands. He had the building extended by Louis Montoyer. Since then, the palace has immediately bordered the Hofburg. The collection was expanded by Albert's successors.
The collection was created by Duke Albert with the Genoese count Giacomo Durazzo, the Austrian ambassador in Venice. In 1776 the count presented nearly 1,000 pieces of art to the duke and his wife Maria Christina (Maria Theresa's daughter). Count Durazzo, who was the brother of Marcello Durazzo, the Doge of Genoa – "wanted to create a collection for posterity that served higher purposes than all others: education and the power of morality should distinguish his collection...." In the 1820s Archduke Charles, Duke Albert and Maria Christina's foster son, initiated further modifications to the building by Joseph Kornhäusel, which affected mostly its interior decoration. After Archduke Charles, his son Archduke Albrecht then Albrecht's nephew Archduke Friedrich, Duke of Teschen lived in the building.
In early 1919, ownership of both the building and the collection passed from the Habsburgs to the newly founded Republic of Austria. In 1920 the collection of prints and drawings was united with the collection of the former imperial court library. The name Albertina was established in 1921.
In March 1945, the Albertina was heavily damaged by Allied bomb attacks. The building was rebuilt in the years after the war and was completely refurbished and modernized from 1998 to 2003. Modifications of the exterior entrance sequence, including a signature roof by Hans Hollein were completed 2008, when also the graphics collection finally reopened.