Moritz Thausing

Moritz Thausing (3 June 1838 – 11 August 1884) was an Austrian art historian, and counts among the founders of the Vienna School of Art History.

The son of a palace official in Schloß Tschischkowitz (modern Čížkovice, near Litoměřice in the Kingdom of Bohemia), Thausing began his academic career as a student of German literature and history. He studied first in Prague, and in 1858 went to Vienna, where he studied at the Österreichische Institut für Geschichtsforschung (Austrian Institute for Historical Research). There he came into contact with Rudolf Eitelberger, who since 1852 had held the first chair in art history at the University of Vienna. Under his influence Thausing began to study the history of art. In 1862 he received an appointment as a library assistant at the Akademie der bildenden Künste, where he also gave general lectures on world and cultural history. In 1864 Eitelberger secured a position for him with the print collection of the Albertina, which he would direct beginning in 1868, although he received the formal title of Director only in 1876.

In 1871 Thausing was an active participant in the so-called "Holbein convention" in Dresden, at which a number of prominent art historians convened to determine which of two versions of Hans Holbein the Younger's Meyer Madonna was the original work.

In 1873, once again due to the advocacy of Eitelberger, Thausing was appointed as a professor extraordinarius for art history at the University, and became ordinarius in 1879. A progressive mental illness overshadowed his final years. His health declined dramatically after he became interim director of the newly founded Istituto Austriaco di studi storici in Rome. Following a temporary commitment to a mental hospital, he died during a vacation in his homeland through drowning (probably intentional) in the Elbe near Litoměřice.

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