Kunsthistorisches Museum

Emperor Franz Joseph I opened the museum around 1891, across the square from the Natural History Museum. The two buildings went up between 1871 and 1891 from the plans of Gottfried Semper and Baron Karl von Hasenauer.

The oldest holdings came down from the dynasty itself. Ferdinand of Tirol contributed portraits and armour, Emperor Rudolph II his vast cabinets, and Archduke Leopold Wilhelm his paintings, whose Italian pictures were first recorded in the Theatrum Pictorium.

The Picture Gallery's rooms are hung with Bruegel, Rubens, Dürer, Velázquez and Titian. Around it sit the Kunstkammer, the Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection, and the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities.

With twelve of his paintings the museum holds the largest Bruegel collection anywhere. The Hunters in the Snow is a winter panel from his cycle of the seasons.

The Kunstkammer revives the Habsburgs' cabinets of wonder, with about 2,160 objects on show, among them Cellini's famous salt cellar, the Saliera. The Egyptian and Near Eastern Collection and the Collection of Greek and Roman Antiquities round out the main building.

Beyond the main building, the museum runs the Ephesos Museum in the Neue Burg, a collection of historical musical instruments, and the Imperial Carriage Museum in the grounds of Schönbrunn.