from 11.11.2025
Coins are not just a means of payment. If you have a closer look, you will see that they are often artistically designed – and they also tell stories. Every day, they passed through countless hands, were minted in large quantities and literally shaped the image of their time. The portrait on a coin was often the one that subjects saw most frequently – a powerful medium of self-expression. This made it all the more significant how rulers presented themselves on those few square centimetres; some became true trendsetters. Fashion, power and identity come together in a very small space: hairstyles, crowns, hats and collars become symbols of status and style consciousness.
The exhibition Head & Collar. Coins Make Fashion in the Coin Cabinet of the Kunsthistorisches Museum presents almost 200 coin portraits from a cultural-historical perspective and shows fashion and lifestyle from over 2,400 years. All exhibits come from the holdings of the Coin Cabinet, which, like hardly any other collection, can illuminate this topic with such a high-quality selection. In addition, visitors can use two media stations to learn in detail how portraits of important personalities were transferred from paintings to the small format of coins and how the clean-shaven Emperor Franz Joseph I became the wearer of the most famous sideburns in Europe.
Head & Collar. Coins Make Fashion
from 11.11.2025
Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien
Maria-Theresien-Platz
1010 Vienna
www.khm.at
