Kunsthistorisches Museum

The Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna counts among the most important museums in the world. It was built by Emperor Franz Joseph to house the fabulous Habsburg collections that had been assembled over centuries. Designed by architects Gottfried Semper and Karl Hasenauer, the Kunsthistorisches Museum on Vienna’s Ringstraße is among the most impressive museums erected in the 19th century. The vast building houses a number of world-renowned collections.
 
The extensive Picture Gallery is one of the foremost collections of Old Masters in the world. Marvel a the fine lines of Raphael, the painted curves by Rubens, the strong colors of Rembrandt;‘meet’  Vermeer, Velázquez, Titian and Duerer, and explore the world’s most extensive collection of paintings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
 
In the outstanding Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection you will stand next to spectacular statues and reliefs, mummy shaped coffins and three huge papyrus-stalk columns. Enter into the fascinating world of the Ancient Egyptians – much of it presented in galleries decorated in the 19th century neo-Egyptian style.
 
See artwork that spans three millennia when entering the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities. Here you will travel in time and space, from the Bronze Age to the Dark Ages, from Cyprus to Greece, Italy and Austria.

Spectacular Reopening of the Kunstkammer
(chamber of art and wonders)
In December 2012, one of the world‘s most important “chambers of art and wonders”, a fabulous realm of fantasy, will reopen in a sumptuous new setting.

The Kunsthistorisches Museum’s Kunstkammer, the most important collection of its kind in the world, evolved out of mediaeval treasuries and the Habsburgs’ “chambers of natural wonders” assembled during the Renaissance and the Baroque. These Habsburg connoisseurs were scions of one of Europe’s most powerful and influential ruling families.
This unique collection of precious objets d’art is presented on over 2.700 m². The visitors will marvel at the wealth of splendid goldsmith work, sculptures made of bronze, ivory or wood, lathe-turned ivory and exotic objects such as ostrich eggs or the horn of the legendary unicorn.