As early as 1790, landscape painters decorated fine Viennese porcelain with views of Italian landscapes, sights and the lava-spouting Vesuvius. In 1897, Josef Hoffmann (1870-1956) wrote about his visit to Capri, describing the special light, the friendliness, the white architecture and the blue sky. Did he have this in mind when he later designed his famous mocha service for the Augarten porcelain manufactory?

The exhibition Capri. Italy in Porcelain sheds light on the diverse relationships between Vienna and the longed-for south as a source of inspiration for stylish pleasures, poetry, adventure and dream worlds and, last but not least, the associated art of Viennese porcelain.