Vienna museum evacuates half its collection

Terra Daily via Agence France-Presse: The Albertina, one of Vienna's most famous museums, said Wednesday it has so far evacuated around half of its vast collection of 950,000 art works after rain flooded its main depot last week. "We've evacuated 50 percent of our total depots," the museum's director Klaus Albrecht Schroeder told a news conference.

"But we have to remove everything because the special cardboard containers where the paintings and drawings are held are damper than they should be." While water had been found on the containers of around 120,000 pieces, "no picture has been damaged," Schroeder said.

The Albertina, which attracts around one million visitors each year, announced last week that it would evacuate its entire depot -- which houses priceless works by artists such as Duerer, Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Schiele and Klimt -- to an unspecified site following flooding caused by heavy rain….

This 1917 self-portrait by Egon Schiele is part of the Albertina's collection