diff --git a/CHANGES b/CHANGES
index b9365646dde..ba6ca9dd624 100644
--- a/CHANGES
+++ b/CHANGES
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@ Bugs fixed
 * #3704: latex: wrong ``\label`` positioning for figures with a legend
 * #5496: C++, fix assertion when a symbol is declared more than twice.
 * #5493: gettext: crashed with broken template
+* #5498: autodoc: unable to find type hints for a ``functools.partial``
 
 Testing
 --------
diff --git a/sphinx/util/inspect.py b/sphinx/util/inspect.py
index 48b8d953d5a..212292fc5ed 100644
--- a/sphinx/util/inspect.py
+++ b/sphinx/util/inspect.py
@@ -358,15 +358,15 @@ def __init__(self, subject, bound_method=False, has_retval=True):
             self.argspec = getargspec(subject)
 
         try:
-            self.annotations = typing.get_type_hints(subject)  # type: ignore
-        except Exception as exc:
-            if (3, 5, 0) <= sys.version_info < (3, 5, 3) and isinstance(exc, AttributeError):
-                # python 3.5.2 raises ValueError for partial objects.
+            if ispartial(subject):
+                # get_type_hints() does not support partial objects
                 self.annotations = {}
             else:
-                logger.warning('Invalid type annotation found on %r. Ignored: %r',
-                               subject, exc)
-                self.annotations = {}
+                self.annotations = typing.get_type_hints(subject)  # type: ignore
+        except Exception as exc:
+            logger.warning('Invalid type annotation found on %r. Ignored: %r',
+                           subject, exc)
+            self.annotations = {}
 
         if bound_method:
             # client gives a hint that the subject is a bound method