An imperial pawnshop of 1707 that became one of the largest auction houses in Europe, and lets anyone walk in and look.
Joseph I founded it in 1707 as an imperial pawnbroking house, to give Vienna’s poor an alternative to private moneylenders. It is still, quietly, a pawnbroker — that function continues on an upper floor — but it is now one of the largest auction houses in continental Europe, running around 600 auctions a year.
The building on Dorotheergasse dates from 1901 and is a substantial neo-Baroque palace built for the purpose, with a grand staircase and a series of top-lit galleries.
Why go
Because it is free, unticketed and largely empty of tourists, and because during viewing days the galleries function as an unusually good temporary museum where the labels have prices on them.
Depending on the week you might find Old Master paintings, nineteenth-century Austrian art, Klimt drawings, Wiener Werkstätte silver, Biedermeier furniture, antique arms, watches, jewellery, carpets, or a room of classic cars. The mix changes constantly and nothing is behind glass unless it needs to be.
Auction dates and viewing times are on the website. You can also simply walk in on any weekday and browse the standing sale rooms, where lower-value items are sold at fixed prices.
Buying
Anyone can bid, in the room, online or by leaving a written bid. There is a buyer’s premium on top of the hammer price, and for anything old and significant there may be export restrictions — Austria controls the export of cultural property, and the house will tell you whether a licence is needed. Get that clear before you bid rather than after.
For small things — prints, glass, ceramics, costume jewellery, books — it is a genuinely practical place to buy a souvenir that is neither a snow globe nor a Mozart chocolate.
Restitution
Like every Austrian institution dealing in art, the Dorotheum’s wartime history is a live subject. The house handled goods seized from Jewish owners after 1938, and provenance research into that period has been ongoing for years, with works identified and returned. The company publishes on it; the history is not hidden but it is also not on the wall as you come in.
Nearby
Dorotheergasse also holds the main Jewish Museum Vienna at number 11, and the street runs between Graben and the Augustinerkirche, which is where the Habsburgs’ hearts are kept in silver urns in a vault behind the Loreto Chapel. Vienna is like that.