The Kunstkammer Vienna
Various artists and goldsmiths · Medieval to eighteenth century; galleries reopened in 2013
Twenty rooms on the mezzanine hold the oldest part of the museum, the chamber of art and wonders assembled by the Habsburg emperors and archdukes between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. Here are drinking cups carved from rock crystal and ostrich eggs, a bezoar stone in a gold mount, ivory figures turned on lathes by princes, mechanical ships that rolled along banqueting tables firing tiny cannon, huge tapestries, bronzes, clocks and automata. The rooms are dark, the cases are lit from within, and every object seems to glow. The Cellini salt cellar sits at the centre of the sequence in a case of its own.
A Kunstkammer was not a museum in the modern sense but an encyclopedia in objects, mixing works of art with natural curiosities to display the whole world in miniature. Rudolf the Second in Prague was the most obsessive collector, and much of his hoard is here: the crown he commissioned is in the Treasury across the road, but his agate bowl, his clocks and his exotic stones fill these rooms. Look for the Bavarian ivory carvings, the tiny Krumau Madonna of about 1400, the sculptures by Giambologna, and the gold basins and ewers of the Augsburg and Nuremberg goldsmiths. The tapestries on the walls were once worth more than any painting.
The collection was shown here from 1891, closed in 2002 for a decade of restoration, and reopened in 2013 in a display that many consider the finest of its kind anywhere. It rewards slow walking. Take one of the audio stations, sit on the benches, and look at the automata videos that show the mechanical objects moving. If you have to choose between the Kunstkammer and the picture galleries, you will find far fewer visitors here, and objects that appear nowhere else on earth.
Did You Know? One automaton in the collection is a mechanical galleon that once sailed down the imperial dining table, playing music and firing its guns.
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