The Kunsthistorisches Museum (or "Art History Museum") is the largest art museum in Austria, with about 150,000 square feet of gallery space. It was built between 1871 and 1891 as part of an ambitious plan to create a gigantic "imperial forum" to the southwest of the already-huge Hofburg palace as it existed in the mid-19th Century. On the existing palace grounds, two large extensions of the palace would be built, surrounding a large open space to be called the Heldenplatz (Heroes' Square). These wings would end just short of the Ringstrasse, but the forum would continue on the other side of the Ringstrasse (now possible because of the demolition of the city wall), where two new museums would surround another new square, called Maria-Theresien Platz, to be devoted to the 18th Century Empress Maria Theresa. The axis of the Heldenplatz would continue across the Ringstrasse and through the center of the Maria-Theresien Platz. As it turned out, much of this plan was completed – the museums were both finished in 1891, and one of the Heldenplatz extensions (the one on the southeast side of the square) was finished in 1913, and is now called the Neue Burg (New Castle). The matching palace extension was never built, so the Heldenplatz is open on one side, where it's adjacent to a large garden area known as the Volksgarten (Peoples' Garden).

Back on the museum side of the Ringstrasse, the two museums face each other across the Maria-Theresien Platz, looking nearly identical but serving two very different purposes. One is called the Naturhistorisches Museum and is devoted to natural history (dinosaur bones, stuffed animals, astronomical topics, etc.). We have not visited the Naturhistorisches Museum. But we spent hours inside the other, the Kunsthistorisches Museum.

Getting to the Kunsthistorisches Museum from the Albertina Museum was wet but not complicated – we just headed south toward the Ringstrasse (named Opernring in the area because of the nearby Opera House) and followed the Ringstrasse clockwise until the street changed its name to Burgring and we came to the Maria-Theresien Platz, where the museum buildings were impossible to miss. We paid our respects to Maria Theresa and then paid for our admission to the building on the left, and we began our exploration of the Kunsthistorisches Museum with the exhibits on the ground floor.

First, to the left from the entrance we entered an area called the Kunstkammer, which consists of 2200 artworks made from valuable or unusual materials. The objects were generally either gifts to the Habsburg emperors or archdukes, or decorative objects made by Austria's finest goldsmiths or artisans at the behest of royal family members (who had sometimes acquired materials from which the objects were made). For the most part the inventory survived World War II, having been moved from the building to safer locations (a good thing, as the building suffered significant damage, not being fully repaired until the early 1960's). Here are some of the artworks of the Kunstkammer, nearly all originating between the 16th and 18th Centuries:












One particular work in the Kunstkammer is especially valuable. It's known as the Saliera, completed by Italian artist Benvenuto Cellini in 1543. It's made of ivory, gold and enamel and was designed to hold salt and pepper. It's the only known surviving work of precious metal by Cellini. The two figures depicted on the Saliera represent the sea (the male figure) and the earth (the female figure). The Saliera was created for Francis I of France, but was given as a gift later in the 16th Century to Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand II by French King Charles IX. It was one of the early works put on display after the Kunsthistorisches Museum opened, but became best known in 2003, when it was stolen from the museum during a renovation, at the time representing the biggest art theft in Austrian history. It was recovered in 2006, when it was found buried in a lead box in a forest north of Vienna (the thief had turned himself in after being identified from surveillance photos). At present the Saliera is insured for about $60 million.

Across the lobby from the Kunstkammer, on the other side of the entrance, is the entrance to the museum's Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection, where we headed next. The collection is immense, with more than 17,000 objects dating back from 3500 B.C. through the early Christian era (only a fraction are on display). While the Habsburgs' acquisition of ancient Egyptian artifacts began as early as the 16th Century, this was not one of their priorities. People in general were not very interested in ancient Egypt until 1798-99, when Napoleon's invasion of the country brought international attention to the region. Avid interest in ancient Egypt and collection of its artifacts by seemingly everybody began in earnest in the 19th Century. Gifts from many sources (including the Egyptian government) flooded into Vienna, while members of the royal family (especially including Franz Joseph's son, Crown Prince Rudolph) were completing acquisitions of their own. All of this stuff ended up with the Kunsthistorisches Museum when it opened in 1891.




Passing through the Egyptian and Near Eastern exhibits, we started running into things that looked Greek and Roman. This is because we had entered the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities. The rooms of this exhibit have about 2500 items on display, which represents a small fraction of the items in the collection. As with the Egyptian artifacts, interest in Greek and Roman stuff exploded in the 19th Century, and artifacts were acquired at a rapid clip, as gifts, through purposeful (and pricey) acquisition, and through (also pricey) archaeological expeditions. The items accumulated in the Augustinian Corridor of the Hofburg palace until some of them needed to be moved somewhere else, and in 1845 sculptures and inscribed stones were moved to the lower Belvedere Palace, outside the Old Town area. In 1891, many artifacts found a home in the new Kunsthistorisches Museum, but there was much that wouldn't fit. In 1978 a new museum was opened in the Neue Burg for the display of artifacts found in the excavation of the ancient city of Ephesus (in modern-day Turkey), but many artifacts to this day are still looking for a permanent home. Here's some of what we found in the Kunsthistorisches Museum's Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities:





But what about the paintings? Doesn't an art museum have to have paintings? Well, not necessarily. But the Kunsthistorisches Museum has plenty. They're upstairs. The stairs are easy to find – they're directly forward from the entrance. And they're decorated to the hilt, so they're hard to miss. The main decoration is a sculptural group by Antonio Canova depicting Theseus and the Centaur in an epic struggle, found dead-center, on the first landing. Canova completed this statue in 1819, and for decades it was on display in a Greek-style temple (completed in 1823, called the Theseus Temple) in the Volksgarten. In 1890 the statue was moved to the nearly-finished Kunsthistorisches Museum (Theseus's arm was apparently broken in the process, but was quickly repaired) and the temple was slated for demolition. But apparently the demolition was postponed, as the temple is still there and being used for exhibitions of contemporary art. And Theseus (and his arm) is on the first landing of the Kunsthistorisches Museum stairway, presiding over the entry into the Land of Paintings.

But before investigating the paintings, we noticed what appeared to be a café through an archway in front of us. We walked in to take a look and found ourselves underneath the building's octagonal dome, in an area known as Cupola Hall which also happens to be a café. Several archways radiate from Cupola Hall, some leading to paintings and others to hallways. Cupola Hall itself was replete with marble, gilded accents and statuary, and it looked like a nice place to take a break. So we did.



The museum's collection of paintings is almost completely a result of acquisitions by Habsburg emperors and archdukes. Unlike the collections discussed above, the collection of paintings was essentially complete by the end of the 18th Century. Additions to the collection were minimal after this time, and in fact there were significant losses during Napoleon's occupation of Vienna in 1809. Prior to this time, the still-growing collection was housed in the Stallburg, a part of the Hofburg palace (now used by the Spanish Riding School to house Lipizzaner horses), but in 1776 was moved by Maria Theresa to the Upper Belvedere palace outside the city walls. While at the Belvedere, the collection was organized according to innovative principles that are still followed by modern art museums today, and it was opened for viewing by the public. Like the other collections, the paintings were moved in 1891 to the new Kunsthistorisches Museum. The collection reflects the tastes of its collectors, consisting mainly of paintings from Italy, Flanders, the Netherlands, Germany and Spain.

A note on visiting the Kunsthistorisches Museum: If you're mainly interested in seeing the paintings, you should go directly upstairs and look at them first, and work your way back down if you have the time. If you do it the other way around, there's a chance you could run out of time before seeing all the paintings. The museum closes at 6 PM on most days, and they insist on everyone being physically out of the building before 6. In our case, we didn't see quite everything we wanted to see, but we did see a lot. Still, it was a bad feeling to start understanding how much remained to be seen and how little time there was to see it. A revisit may be in order. But here's some of what we were able to see. First, some of the Italian paintings:








Next, some paintings by Spaniards:



A few from French artists:


Some of the German paintngs:


And a few from the Low Countries:



At about 5:55, we found ourselves back out in Maria-Theresien Platz. The rain had let up by this time, but we were pretty worn out. We returned to the hotel and rested awhile. Eventually we located some seafood at the local Nordsee.

After eating, we immediately went back to the hotel and got ready for bed. Again, we had ambitious plans for the following day. We would start by venturing into the bowels of the Hofburg Palace, to see the contents of the Imperial Treasury. We were going to the Schatzkammer.