Kunsthistorisches Museum

Interesting facts

The museum holds the world's largest collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.

In 2003 a thief climbed builders' scaffolding, broke a window and took Cellini's salt cellar, then valued at around 50 million euros, in under a minute.

The alarm did go off during the salt cellar theft, but it was dismissed as false and the loss went unnoticed until the next morning.

The man who stole the salt cellar turned out to be a specialist in security alarms; he gave himself up after police published surveillance images.

Vermeer's The Art of Painting is the only Vermeer in Austria; Hitler bought it in 1940 for 1.65 million Reichsmarks for his planned museum in Linz.

The heirs of the Czernin family, who sold the Vermeer to Hitler, have argued that the sale was made under pressure from the Nazi regime.

The museum displays the complete offering chapel of Ka-ni-nisut, an Egyptian official's tomb found at Giza by an Austrian excavation in 1913.

To mark its 125th anniversary in 2016, the museum covered about 1,200 square metres of its main facade with a digital projection.

Why it is worth it

The Kunsthistorisches Museum exists because the Habsburgs wanted their collections seen. Emperor Franz Joseph commissioned it and its twin, the Natural History Museum, facing each other across Maria-Theresien-Platz on the Ringstrasse. Gottfried Semper and Karl von Hasenauer designed both between 1871 and 1891 as Renaissance Revival palaces crowned by octagonal domes about 60 metres high. The interiors are part of the show: marble, stucco and gold leaf everywhere, and on the grand staircase paintings by Hans Makart and by Gustav Klimt, working with his brother Ernst and Franz Matsch.

The picture gallery is built on the collections of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, Rudolf II and Ferdinand of Tyrol, and one group alone justifies the trip: an extraordinary run of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, including The Hunters in the Snow, The Tower of Babel, Children's Games, The Fight Between Carnival and Lent and The Peasant Wedding. Nearby are Vermeer's The Art of Painting, Raphael's Madonna of the Meadow, Caravaggio's Madonna of the Rosary and David with the Head of Goliath, Titian, Dürer, Arcimboldo's heads of the seasons, a late Rembrandt self-portrait and portraits of the Spanish royal family by Velázquez, sent from Madrid to their Habsburg relatives in Vienna.

Its star piece is the salt cellar made by Benvenuto Cellini: stolen in 2003 in Austria's biggest art theft, it was found buried in a box in a forest near Zwettl in 2006. The Egyptian and Near Eastern collection and the Greek and Roman antiquities fill the ground floor. The same institution also runs the Imperial Treasury and the Imperial Armoury in the Hofburg across the Ring.

Getting there

The museum is on Maria-Theresien-Platz in the Innere Stadt of Vienna, just outside the old centre on the Ringstrasse. U-Bahn lines U2 and U3 stop nearby (Volkstheater is closest on the U3), and tram D stops at Burgring. The nearest airport is Vienna International (VIE), about 19 km away.

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia

The Kunsthistorisches Museum Wien is an art museum in Vienna, Austria. Housed in its festive palatial building on the Vienna Ring Road, 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.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia