Kunsthistorisches Museum

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 and one of the most important museums worldwide.

Kunsthistorisches Museum
Location within Vienna
Established1871-1891
LocationMaria Theresien Platz Vienna, Austria
TypeArt Museum
Visitors1.745.070 (2019)[1]
DirectorSabine Haag (since 2009)
ArchitectKarl Hasenauer, Gottfried Semper
Websitewww.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

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 Baron Karl 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 buildings are rectangular in shape, and topped with a dome that is 60 meters high. The façade was built of sandstone. The inside of the museums is lavishly decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf and paintings. The staircase of the Kunsthistorisches Museum is equipped with paintings by Gustav Klimt, Ernst Klimt, Franz Matsch, Hans Makart and Mihály Munkácsy.[3]

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:

  • Jan van Eyck: Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati (c. 1431)
  • Antonello da Messina: San Cassiano Altarpiece (1475–1476)
  • Raphael:
    • Madonna of the Meadow (1506)
    • St Margaret and the Dragon (1518)
  • Albrecht Dürer:
    • Avarice (1507)
    • Adoration of the Trinity (1511)
  • Titian:
    • The Bravo (1516–17)
    • Portrait of Isabella d'Este (1534–36)
  • Lorenzo Lotto: Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine and Saint James (c.1527)
  • Tintoretto: Susanna and the Elders (1555–56)
  • Pieter Brueghel the Elder:
    • The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559)
    • Children's Games (1560)
    • The Tower of Babel (1563)
    • The Procession to Calvary (1564)
    • The Gloomy Day (February - March) (1565)
    • The Return of the Herd (October - November) (1565)
    • The Hunters in the Snow (December - January) (1565)
    • The Peasant and the Nest Robber (Bauer und Vogeldieb), 1568
    • The Peasant Wedding (1568/69)
    • The Peasant Dance (1568/69)
  • Giuseppe Arcimboldo:
    • The Four Seasons
      • Summer (1563)
  • Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio:
    • The Crowning with Thorns (c. 1602–04)
    • Madonna of the Rosary (1606–07)
    • David with the Head of Goliath
  • Peter Paul Rubens:
    • Miracles of St. Francis Xavier
    • Angelica and the Hermit (1626–28)
    • Ildefonso Altarpiece (1630–32)
    • Self-Portrait (1638–39)
    • The Fur (1638)
  • Rembrandt: Self Portrait (1652)
  • Johannes Vermeer: The Art of Painting (1665–66)
  • Diego Velázquez: Several portraits of the Spanish royal family, a branch of the Habsburg, sent to Vienna.
  • Thomas Gainsborough: Landscape in Suffolk (1748; currently not on display)

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
  • Museum of Carriages and Department of Court Uniforms (in Schönbrunn Palace)
  • Collections of Ambras Castle (in Innsbruck)
  • the Austrian Theatre Museum in Palais Lobkowitz

Also affiliated are the:

  • Museum of Ethnology in the Neue Burg (affiliated in 2001);
  • Lipizzaner-Museum in the Stallburg

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.[4]

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.

From October 2018 through January 2019 was shown the world's largest-ever exhibition of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder called Bruegel – Once in a Lifetime”.[5]

See also
  • Imperial Treasury, Vienna
  • List of largest art museums

References
  1. [https://www.derstandard.de/story/2000113948737/bundesmuseen-2019-rekord-mit-6-93-millionen-besuchern
  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. Gustav Klimt and Egyptian Art. Paintings in the staircase of the Kunsthistorisches Museum. by Ernst Czerny.
  4. "Police find stolen £36m figurine". BBC News. 2006-01-22. Retrieved 2013-09-16.
  5. "The Best of Bruegel – Only in Vienna". www.khm.at. Retrieved 2019-12-06.

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