Kunsthistorisches Museum

Kunsthistorisches Museum
Established 1871-1891
Location Vienna, Austria
Visitors 559,150 (2010)[1]
Website www.khm.at
Interior
Madonna of the Meadow by Raphael
Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel
Summer, by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1563
Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Blue Dress by Velázquez
Sculptures at staircase

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (lit. "Museum of Art History", also often referred to as the "Museum of Fine Arts") is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on Ringstraße, it is crowned with an octagonal dome. The term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building. It is the largest art museum in the country.

It was opened around 1891 at the same time as the Natural History Museum, Vienna, by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary.[2] The two museums have similar exteriors and face each other across Maria-Theresien-Platz. Both buildings were built between 1871 and 1891 according to plans drawn up by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer.

The two Ringstraße museums were commissioned by the emperor in order to find a suitable shelter for the Habsburgs' formidable art collection and to make it accessible to the general public. The façade was built of sandstone. The building is rectangular in shape, and topped with a dome that is 60 meters high. The inside of the building is lavishly decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf, and paintings.

Collection

The museum's primary collections are those of the Habsburgs, particularly from the portrait and armour collections of Ferdinand of Tirol, the collections of Emperor Rudolph II (the largest part of which is, however, scattered), and the collection of paintings of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, of which his Italian paintings were first documented in the Theatrum Pictorium.

Notable works in the picture gallery include:

The collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum:

  • Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection
  • Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities
  • Collection of Sculpture and Decorative Arts
  • Coin Cabinet
  • Library

Hofburg

  • Ephesus Museum
  • Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
  • Collection of Arms and Armour
  • Archive
  • Secular and Ecclesiastical Treasury (in the Schweizerhof)

Others

Also affiliated are the:

Recent events

One of the museum's most important objects, the Cellini Salt Cellar sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini, was stolen on May 11, 2003 and recovered on January 21, 2006, in a box buried in a forest near the town of Zwettl, Austria. It was featured in an episode of Museum Secrets on the History Channel. It had been the biggest art theft in Austrian history.[3]

The museum is the subject of Johannes Holzhausen's documentary film The Great Museum (2014), filmed over two years in the run up to the re-opening of the newly renovated and expanded Kunstkammer rooms in 2013.

See also

References

  1. ↑ The Art Newspaper. World museum attendance figures for 2010. Access 22 Oct 2011.
  2. ↑ The Office Of The High Chamberlain (Dec 31, 1906). Guide to the Treasury of the Imperial House of Austria. Vienna, Austria: A. Holzhausen. p. 12.
  3. ↑ "Police find stolen £36m figurine". BBC News. 2006-01-22. Retrieved 2013-09-16.

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Coordinates: 48°12′13″N 16°21′42″E / 48.2037°N 16.3618°E / 48.2037; 16.3618

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