Johann Caspar Lavater Collection

More than 20.000 scans of hand drawings and prints including respective metadata from the graphics collection of Johann Caspar Lavater. The graphics and the handwritten physiognomic commentaries in German may contain elements and/or statements that are racist, sexist, antisemitic or discriminatory in some other way, from which the Austrian National Library distances itself and provides this collection for research purposes only.

The Lavater collection was founded by the Swiss pastor and physiognomist Johann Caspar Lavater (1741–1801). Physiognomy is a practice which seeks to assess a person’s character from his/her outer appearance, especially on the basis of their face. Its origins date back to Greek antiquity. Physiognomy is the basis of racist theories and is no longer considered a science today. Lavater mostly collected portraits, but he also commissioned large numbers of drawings of heads, figures, parts of the human body and animals. The art works of his collections served for physiognomical studies and were partially used as templates for illustrations in his physiognomical writings. After Lavater’s death the collection was sold and purchased by Emperor Franz I of Austria in 1828. It became part of the Fideicomiss Library of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine which was nationalized in 1919 by Austrian law. In 1921 both collections were incorporated into the newly founded National Library (today’s Austrian National Library).