VIENNA 403Naturhistorisches
Museum 4Maria Theresien-Platz. Tel (01)- v 1, 2, 46, 49, D. @ 2A,
48A. % Volkstheater. # 9am–
6:30pm Thu–Mon, 9am–9pm Wed.
¢ 1 Jan, 1 May, 1 Nov, 25 Dec. &
7 - = http://www.nhm-wien.ac.at
Almost a mirror image of the
Kunsthistorisches Museum,
the Natural History Museum
was designed by the same
architects and opened in- Both were built under
the reign of Franz Joseph I.
The Natural History
Museum is home to one of
the richest and most wide-
ranging collec tions in the
world. It includes archae-
ological, anthropological,
mineral ogical, zoological and
geo logical displays. Besides
casts of dinosaur skeletons,
it also has the world’s oldest
collection of meteorites.
It also includes prehistoric
sculpt ures, Bronze Age
items and extinct birds
and mammals as well
as Europe’s most compre-
hensive exhibition of gems.
The archaeo logical section
includes the celebrated
Venus of Willendorf, a
25,000-year-old Paleolithic
fertility figurine.
MuseumsQuartier
Wien 3Museumsplatz 1. Tel (01) 523 5881.
v 1, 2, 49, D, J. @ 2A, 48A.
% MuseumsQuartier, Volkstheater.
Visitor Centre # 10am–7pm daily.
http://www.mqw.at. KUNSTHALLE wien
# 10am–7pm Fri–Wed, 10am–10pm
Thu. & 7 Leopold Museum
# 10am–6pm Fri–Mon, Wed,
10am–9pm Thu. ¢ Tue, pub hols.
& Museum of Modern Art
Ludwig Foundation Vienna #
10am–6pm Tue, Wed, Fri–Sun, 10am –
9pm Thu. ¢ Mon, 24–25 Dec.Once home to the imperial
stables and carriage houses,
the MuseumsQuartier Wien is
one of the largest culturalHunters in the Snow (1565) by Pieter Bruegel the Elder
Schiele’s Kneeling Female Nude,
(1917) MuseumsQuartier Wiencentres in the world. It houses
a diverse range of facilities
from art museums to venues
for film, theatre, architecture,
dance and new media.
The complex includes
KUNSTHALLE wien, Vienna’s
main showcase for inter-
national and contem porary
art exhibitions. It focuses on
trans disciplinary work, inclu d-
ing photography and film, as
well as modern-art retrospec-
tives. To the left of Kunsthalle
is the Leopold Museum,
home to over 5,000 works
of Austrian art of which the
highlights are major works
by Gustav Klimt and the
world’s largest Egon Schiele
col lection. The Museum of
Modern Art Ludwig
Foundation Vienna (MUMOK)
contains one of the largest
European col lections of
modern art ranging from Pop
Art to Viennese Actionism.Kunsthistorisches
Museum 2
Maria Theresien-Platz. Tel (01)
52524 4025. v D, J, 1, 2.
@ 2A, 57A. % Volkstheater,
MuseumsQuartier. # 10am–6pm
Tue, Wed, Fri–Sun; 10am–9pm Thu.
& 9 7 http://www.khm.at
Built in the style of the Italian
Renaissance, the Museum of
Art History houses a
collection amassed over the
centuries by generations of
Habsburg mon archs. The
public was given access to
these art treasures when the
museum opened in 1891 in
Ringstrasse, built to designs
by Karl von Hasenauer (1833–
94) and Gottfried Semper
(1809–79). The museum’s
lavish interior complements
its exhi bits perfectly and
attracts more than a million
people each year.
The collection focuses on
Old Masters from the 15th to
the 18th centuries. Due to
links between the Habsburgs
and the Netherlands, Flemish
art is also well represen ted.
Highlights are about half the
surviving works by Pieter
Bruegel the Elder, including
his The Tower of Babel and
most of the cycle of The
Seasons, all from the mid-16th
century. Among the other
outstanding works are Dutch
paintings from genre scenes
of great charm to magnificent
land scapes. The Artist’s Studio
(1665), an enigmatic allegori cal
painting by Vermeer (1632–75),
is believed by some to be a
self-portrait of the artist at
work. The most interesting
Spanish works are by
Velasquez (1599–1660), who
immortalized the eight-year-old
Margarita Teresa, the future
wife of Emperor Leopold I
(1640–1705), in Infanta (1659).