The Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna’s 2024 spring exhibition is devoted to three outstanding pioneers of the Renaissance north of the Alps: Hans Holbein the Elder, Hans Burgkmair, and Albrecht Dürer. It offers a golden opportunity to experience fascinating works by these artists and to explore how Augsburg became the birthplace of the Northern Renaissance.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, Augsburg – dominated by the hugely wealthy banking family of the Fuggers – was influenced by the art of Italy more than almost any other city north of the Alps. That this was the case is vividly demonstrated by the two most important Augsburg painters of the period: Hans Holbein the Elder (c.1464–1524) and Hans Burgkmair (1473–1531). In the Vienna exhibition, select works by these two very contrasting artists enter into a stimulating dialogue with works by Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528) and further German, Italian, and Netherlandish masters, notably the Augsburg-born Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543). The exhibition in Vienna showcases more than 160 paintings, sculptures and other works from many of the most important collections of Europe and the United States of America.