Kunsthistorisches Museum

Collection

Picture gallery

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 ()
• 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 (1534–1536)
• Lorenzo Lotto: Madonna and Child with Saint Catherine and Saint James ()
• 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)
    • Winter (1563)
• Caravaggio:
  • The Crowning with Thorns (–1604)
  • Madonna of the Rosary (1606–07)
  • David with the Head of Goliath
• Peter Paul Rubens:
  • Miracles of St. Francis Xavier
  • Angelica and the Hermit (1626–1628)
  • Ildefonso Altarpiece (1630–1632)
  • Self-Portrait (1638–39)
  • The Fur (1638)
• Rembrandt: Self Portrait (1652)
• Ciro Ferri: Ananias Curing Saul's Blindness (1660)
• 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.
• Adrien Manglard: Seestück; Seehafen
• 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 Collection
• Library

Hofburg

• Ephesus Museum
• Collection of Ancient Musical Instruments
• Imperial Armoury
• 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

Nazi-looted art

In 2010, an Austrian government panel recommended that the Kunsthistorisches Museum should restitute two altar panels by the 16th-century Dutch artist, Maerten van Heemskerck to the heirs of Richard Neumann, a Jewish art collector in Vienna plundered by the Nazis.

In 2015, a dispute over a painting by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559), erupted between Poland and Austria. Poland presented evidence that the painting had been seized by Charlotte von Wächter, the wife of Krakow's Nazi governor Otto von Wächter, during the German occupation of Poland. The Kunsthistorisches Museum, insisted that it had owned the painting since the 17th century, and that the artwork seized by von Wächter in 1939 "was a different painting".

Recent events

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

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 the museum hosted the world's largest-ever exhibition of works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder called Bruegel – Once in a Lifetime.

Gallery

|File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Hunters in the Snow (Winter) - Google Art Project.jpg|The Hunters in the Snow by Pieter Bruegel the Elder |File:Saliera 1540-44 Cellini Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien Austria - panoramio.jpg|Cellini Salt Cellar |File:Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Peasant Wedding - Google Art Project 2.jpg|Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Peasant Wedding |File:Cupola of Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna.jpg|Cupola of museum |File:Albrecht Dürer - Cupid the Honey Thief - WGA07372.jpg|Cupid the Honey Thief, drawing by Albrecht Dürer |File:KunsthistorischesMuseumStatue.jpg|Statue outside the Kunsthistorisches Museum |File:Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio - The Crowning with Thorns - Google Art Project.jpg|The Crowning with Thorns by Caravaggio |File:Caravaggio - David with the Head of Goliath - Vienna.jpg|David with the Head of Goliath by Caravaggio |File:Adrien Manglard - Seestück - GG 453 - Kunsthistorisches Museum.jpg|Seestück by Adrien Manglard |File:Adrien Manglard - Seehafen - GG 1779 - Kunsthistorisches Museum.jpg|Seehafen by Adrien Manglard |File:EmperorSuleiman.jpg|Suleiman the Magnificent by Titian |File:Sculpture of Madonna with child and St John (Kunsthistoriches Museum).jpg|Madonna with child and St John by Benedetto Cacciatori |File:Jan Vermeer - The Art of Painting - Google Art Project.jpg|Johannes Vermeer's The Art of Painting |File:Tizian 056.jpg|Portrait of Isabella d'Este by Titian |File:Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna Saal.jpg|One of the galleries |File:Thutmosis III wien front.jpg|Statue of Thutmosis III |File:Russia Bratina of Ladislaus IV Vasa 01.jpg|A loving cup of King Ladislaus IV of Poland |File:Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn - Large Self-Portrait - Google Art Project.jpg|Self-portrait by Rembrandt |File:Michelangelo Merisi, called Caravaggio - Madonna of the Rosary - Google Art Project.jpg|Madonna of the Rosary by Caravaggio

References

References

1. "The 100 most popular art museums in the world—blockbusters, bots and bounce-backs". The Art Newspaper.
2. The Office of the High Chamberlain. (31 December 1906). "Guide to the Treasury of the Imperial House of Austria". A. Holzhausen.
3. Czerny, Ernst. (2012). "Gustav Klimt and Egyptian Art. Paintings in the staircase of the Kunsthistorisches Museum". Academy of Performing Arts in Prague.
4. Hickley, Catherine. "Austria Urges Return of Altar Panels to Jewish Heir". Bloomberg.
5. (2015-10-26). "Row erupts over £50m Bruegel painting in Nazi looted art claim".
6. (2015-10-23). "$77 Million Bruegel Painting in Nazi Loot Claim".
7. (22 January 2006). "Police find stolen £36m figurine". [[BBC News]].
8. "The Best of Bruegel – Only in Vienna". Kunsthistorisches Museum.