The author beside the painting of Helene Fourment (Peter Paul Rubens), Picture Gallery, Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Picture Gallery of the Kunsthistorisches Museum, developed from the art collections of the House of Habsburg (notably Rudolf II in the late-16th/early-17th century and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in the mid-17th century), is one of the largest and most important of its kind in the world with numerous masterpieces from European art history.

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Grablegung Christi (Tizan)

Ecce Homo (Tiziano Vecellio, 1543)

It occupies two wings of the first floor with one wing focusing on 16th-century Venetian painting (Titian, Paolo Veronese, Tintoretto, etc.), Spanish and French works and the other on Dutch painting (Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, etc.), 17th-century Flemish painting (Peter Paul Rubens, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, etc.) and German Renaissance painting (Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach, etc.).

John the Baptist Preaching (Bernardo Strozzi)

Mary with Child and Saints (Perugino)

The gallery includes the world’s largest collection of works by Pieter Brueghel the Elder, painted depictions of 16th century life which are unique worldwide and are an absolute joy.

The author (left) beside the painting of The Peasant Wedding of Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1568)

Tower of Babel (Pieter Bruegel)

The Massacre of the Innocents (Pieter Bruegel the Elder)

It features such famous works as the iconic The Tower of Babel (1563), The Fight Between Carnival and Lent (1559), Children’s Games (1560),  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) and The Peasant Dance (1568/69).

Madonna of the Meadow (Raphael)

Madonna and Child with Saints Catherine and James (Lorenzo Lotto)

Among the other highlights hanging in the hallowed museum walls of the Picture Gallery are its holdings of masterpieces of Europe’s greatest artists from the 15th, 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries such as:

• Jan van Eyck: Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati (c. 1431)
• Albrecht Dürer: Adoration of the Trinity(1511) and Portrait of Emperor Maximilian I (1519)
• Tintoretto: Susanna and the Elders (1555–56)
• Giuseppe Arcimboldo: Summer(1563)
• Antonello da Messina: San Cassiano Altarpiece(1475–1476)
• Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio: Madonna of the Rosary (1606/07), The Crowning with Thorns and David with the Head of Goliath
• Peter Paul Rubens: Ildefonso Altar (1630–32), The Miracles of St. Francis Xavier (1618) and The Fur (Portrait of his wife Hélène Fourment after emerging from the bath, partially wrapped in fur, 1638)
• Raphael: Madonna of the Meadow (1506)
• 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
• Hans Holbein the Younger: Portrait of Jane Seymour (1536/1537)

Homecoming of Hagar (Pietro da Cortona)

Hercules, Dejanira and the centaur Nesius (Paolo Veronese)

The paintings, though hanging in tall galleries, are more or less at eye level, making them easy to view from lovely upholstered sofas.

Cimon and Iphigenaia (Peter Paul Rubens)

The Four Rivers of Paradise (Peter Paul Rubens, 1615)

The protective rails feature accessible, individual descriptions in both German and English.

Bird hunting in Brussels (David Terniers, 1652)

Around 1890, Gustav Klimt, Ernst Klimt and Franz von Matsch painted the areas between and around the arches and columns on the north wall of the main staircase.

Advent … Elizabeth’s Moment (Luca Giordano)

The Triumph of Bacchus (Michaelina Woutiers)

Picture Gallery: First Floor, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Maria Theresien-Platz, 1010 Vienna. Tel: +43 1 525 24- 4902. E-mail: info.ansa@khm. Open Tuesdays – Sundays, 10 AM – 6 PM, Thursdays, 10 AM – 9 PM.

How to Get There: take U1 going to Leopoldau at Keplerplatz, transfer to U2 going to Aspernstrabe at Karlsplatz, exit at Volkstheater.

Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History), also often referred to as the “Museum of Fine Arts,” is housed in its festive palatial building, on the Ringstraße. The term Kunsthistorisches Museum applies to both the institution and the main building.

L-R (standing): Popong Flores, Jandy Layug, the author, Grace Layug, Manny Sta. Maria, Freddie Sta. Maria and Isko Dionela. Seated: Cheska and Kyle Layug

It was opened by Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary around 1891, the same time as the Natural History Museum (Naturhistorisches Museum) across Maria-Theresien-Platz.

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The ornate interior

The two museums, with identical exteriors,  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.

Apotheosis Of The Renaissance (Mihaly Munkacsy, 1844-1900, Hungary)

Both were built between 1872 and 1891 according to plans drawn up by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer.

This rectangular building, with its sandstone façade, is topped with a 60 m. high octagonal dome.  Its interior is lavishly decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf, and paintings.

Jandy beside sculpture of Theseus Defeats the Centaur (Antonio Canova)

Here are some interesting trivia regarding the museum:

• The museum was the subject of Johannes Holzhausen’s documentary film The Great Museum (2014). It was filmed over two years in the run up to the re-opening of the newly renovated and expanded Kunstkammer rooms in 2013.
• The museum appears, in considerable detail, in the final mission of the video game Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, developed by Illusion Softworks.
• The museum is the setting for director Jem Cohen‘s 2012 feature film Museum Hours. Distributed by The Cinema Guild, it premiered at the 2012 Locarno International Film Festival and was screened in festivals such as the Toronto International Film Festival and Maryland Film Festival.
• The museum’s primary Habsburg collections are from the portrait and armor collections of Ferdinand of Tirol, the collections of Emperor Rudolph II (however, the largest part is scattered) and the collection of paintings of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm.
• The Cellini Salt Cellar, a sculpture by Benvenuto Cellini, one of the museum’s most important objects, was is featured in an episode of Museum Secrets on the History Channel.
• On May 11, 2003, the Cellini Salt Cellar was stolen but was recovered on January 21, 2006 in a box buried in a forest near the town of Zwettl, Austria.  It was the biggest art theft in Austrian history.

The collections of the Kunsthistorisches Museum  include the Picture Gallery, the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection, the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities, Kunstkammer (Collection of Sculpture and Decorative Arts), the Coin Cabinet and the Library.

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Kunsthistorisches Museum: Maria Theresien-Platz, 1010 Vienna. Tel: +43 1 525 24- 4902. E-mail: info.ansa@khm. Open Tuesdays – Sundays, 10 AM – 6 PM, Thursdays, 10 AM – 9 PM.

How to Get There: take U1 going to Leopoldau at Keplerplatz, transfer to U2 going to Aspernstrabe at Karlsplatz, exit at Volkstheater.

Osterreichische Galerie Belvedere

The highlight of our tour of the Belvedere Palace, the summer residence of  the great art patron and collector Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736), was our tour of the Österreichische Galerie Belvedere (Austrian Gallery), an art museum housed in the Upper Belvedere, one of two palaces that make up the Belvedere.

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The author

Named as such in 1921, this museum houses an extensive and permanent collection which includes several thousand masterpieces from the Middle Ages and Baroque up to the 21^st century contemporary art, focusing on Austrian painters from the Fin de Siècle and Art Nouveau period complemented by the works of international artists.

Further attractions at the museum include key works of French Impressionism and the greatest, outstanding and most important collection of Viennese art from the Biedermeier Collection as well as highlights of the Baroque and Medieval Collection.

Duke Ernst the Iron Saves Cimburgis (Franz Dobyaschofsky, 1850, oil on canvas)

The collection threw a fresh and exciting light on artworks by well known Austrian artists that includes the world’s largest collections of paintings by Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller and Gustav Klimt and the Character Heads by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt. Other Austrian artists with works displayed include Rueland Frueauf the Elder, Erika Giovanna Klien, Egon Schiele, Helene Funke, and Oskar Kokoschka.

Cheska admiring “Count Moritz Christian von Fries and his Family,” an oil on canvas painting by François Pascal Simon Gérard

The museum’s display concept offered fresh approaches to these masterpieces of art through four innovative and thematically organized galleries (Austrian Baroque; Habsburg – Myth and Truth; Austria in Exile: Artists in Exile – Destinies in Dark Times; and Austria on the Move) that enlivened the path through the chronologically arranged periods of art in the permanent collection, sparking a multi-layered dialogue between the classics of art history and contemporary artists, for example Erwin Wurm and Christian Philipp Müller.

Empress Maria Theresa with her Children (Heinrich Fuger, tempera on parchment, 1776)

Conceived as a deliberate pause, the magnificent staterooms provides an opportunity to engage with, as well as focus on, issues and questions concerning Austria’s art, identity and history over the course of different epochs. An exciting interaction between past and present, we encountered and experienced an almost complete overview of the development of over 500 years of art history in Austria and, thus, an insight into the country’s history, rediscovering old favorites in a new context.

The Chess game (Josef Danhauser, 1839)

A section in the exhibition is dedicated to the tempestuous history of the Belvedere covering Prince Eugene’s building of the palaces, the foundation of the museum, the signing of the Austrian State Treaty, and its role today as a modern museum.

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss (Lovers), 1908–1909. Measuring 180×180 cms., the ornamental character of this masterpiece is enhanced with gold and silver. According to a contemporary rumor, the couple depicted is the artist himself and his lifelong partner Emilie Flöge. which was Bought in 1908 by the Moderne Galerie, Klimt reached the pinnacle of his “golden” phase with “The Kiss.”

At the Galerie des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts (Gallery of 19th- and 20th-Century Art), I found works by the artists of the 1897 Secessionist movement. Most outstanding is Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), one of the movement’s founders.  The heart of the presentation of “Art around 1900” is the collection of 24 of his works (portraits, landscapes, and allegorical scenes), the world’s largest collection of his paintings, which allowed us to trace the evolution of his style, from elegant portraiture (e.g. 1897/1898’s Sonja Krips), through to portraits with abstract elements (1906’s Fritza Riedler), impressionist landscapes (1907’s Flowering Poppies) and, of course, the golden pictures The Kiss (1907/08), his most famous painting, and Judith (1901).

Napoleon at the St. Bernard Pass (Jacques Louis David, 1801. Oil on canvas, 246 x 231 cm.)

Sharing almost equal billing with Klimt is Egon Schiele  (1890-1918).  The museum hosts some of Schiele’s masterpieces, including The Wife of an Artist, The Embrace, Death and the Maiden, and The Family (a self-portrait painted just months before his death in 1918 from Spanish flu; the expressions on their faces suggest that Schiele and his wife almost seem to know what’s coming).

Österreichische Galerie Belvedere: Upper Belvedere, Prinz Eugen-Straße 27, 1030 Vienna, Austria. Tel: +43 1 795 57-0 and +43 1 79557134. Open: 10 AM -6 PM. E-mail: info@belvedere.at. Website:  www.belvedere.at.  Admission (Upper Belvedere): €16 (adult)

How to Get There: take U1 going to Reumannplatz at Stephansplatz, exit at Hauptbahnhof, then walk.