Kunsthistorisches Museum
The Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History, also often referred to as Museum of Fine Arts) in Vienna is not only the most important museum of Austria, but also one of the largest in the world. Together with the Naturhistorischen Museum (Natural History Museum, its identical counterpart) opposite and the Maria Theresa monument in between, it forms an urban ensemble. Commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph I in the course of a city expansion, the monumental building was not only intended to bring together the art treasures collected by the Habsburgs over the centuries, but also to represent them appropriately. Both museums were built between 1872 and 1891 according to plans drawn up by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer. Each building is dominated by an 60 m high dome. On the one of the Kunsthistorisches Museum stands a bronze statue of the Greek goddess of wisdom Pallas Athene, designed by Johannes Benk, as the patron of art and science. The facades, mainly made of limestone, have column decorations. The inside of the building is lavishly decorated with marble, stucco ornamentations, gold-leaf, and paintings. The Emperor Franz Joseph I opened it on November 17. 1891, and a few days later the museum was open tot the public.
Today the Kunsthistorische Museum (KHM) also includes the collections in the Neue Burg, the Austrian Theater Museum in Palais Lobkowitz, the Weltmuseum (world museum) Wien, the Theseus Temple in the Volksgarten, the Treasury in the Hofburg and the Museum of Imperial Carriages in an annex of Schönbrunn Palace. A branch is located in Ambras Castle in Innsbruck. The mainbuilding of the KHM houses the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection (with more than 17.000 objects including the richly decorated Offering Chapel of Ka-ni-nisut from the Egyptian ancient kingdom), the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities (some 2.500 objects are on permanent display including unique antique cameos and the golden treasure of Nagyszentmiklós), the Kunstkammer Wien (a chamber of wonders or cabinet of curiosities with over 2.200 fabulous artworks including the celebrated Sailera by Benvenuto Cellini), the Coin Collection (with some 600.000 objects from three millennials, it is one of the five largest and most important coin collections in the world), and the Picture Gallery. The core of the collection of paintings and the main focal points are Venetian painting from the 16th century (Titian, Veronese, Tintoretto), 17th-century Flemish painting (Peter Paul Rubens, Anthony Van Dyck), Early Netherlandish painting (Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden) and German Renaissance painting (Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach). Among the other highlights in the Picture Gallery are its holdings of pictures by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which are unique worldwide, as well as masterpieces by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Raphael, Caravaggio, Velasquez and Italian Baroque painters.