It was impossible not to notice the announcements. All over central Vienna, posters of various shapes and sizes blared the words Monet to Picasso, as they leapt out from café awnings, street corners and roadside stops. Inside the grand foyer of the Albertina Museum, they appeared once again in glorious calculated cadence — like an invitation impossible to refuse. Their intention was clear: you were here for two names only. And so, with time carefully allotted, in between curated tours and relished meals, I came with the purest of intentions — to admire Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso, and no one else.

Judging from the museum’s promotions, it seemed the exhibition revolved solely around those two titans. The illustrations featured Monet’s tranquil garden in Giverny — sunlight, lilies and reflection — a seamless blend of Impressionism and Cubism.

That first afternoon, I strolled through Monet’s luminous waterscapes and Picasso’s restless geometries, utterly absorbed. And yet behind those two names lay a remarkable array of other masters, quietly waiting to be discovered.

Turns out, I was compelled to return to the depository for another look — a rarity, if at all!

There was a long line at the entrance when I returned a few days later. Once inside, the crowds dissolved into muffled footsteps and hushed admiration. The Batliner Collection, which the Albertina proudly calls one of the most significant compilations of classical modernism in Europe, courtesy of the banking family of Herbert and Rita Batliner, unfurled before me — a journey spanning more than a century, from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth.