Vienna: KHM … Kunstkammer Wien

The Kunstkammer — which translates as the art chamber — was the last Kunsthistorisches Musseum collection we wandered around … with our eyes nearly popping out of their sockets at times.

At KHM, there is a particularly lavishly decorated room on the ground floor. The floor plan for the museum refers to it simply as Sala 19. But it is far more than just a gallery. It is where the ‘cradle’ of the museum begins. It is where the Kunstkammer welcomes visitors on their journey through the next 19 interconnected salons where objects collected by the Habsburgs for 600 years are exhibited.

True, the KHM was purpose-built to house the imperial collections. The Kunstkammer is special, however. It is a museum within a museum, if you will. It is a “… type of collection that developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. … it assembled the widest possible variety of products of nature and of human skill and artistry as a reflection of the cosmos. … where the ideas of the ‘museum’ of modern times originated.” At least that’s how an info panel described what our eyes would be beholding as we went from gallery to gallery.

In this collection we found objects of over-the-top lavish beauty and curiosity … objects made from rock crystal, ivory, gold, bronze, wood, marble, and more … objects ranging from paintings and tapestries, to statues and statuettes, to vases and platters, to cameos and cut gems, to coins and game boards, to clocks and calculators. And, oh so much more.

The website says there are some 2,200 pieces exhibited in the 20 galleries of the Kunstkammer. I’m sure there is … it was mind boggling and overwhelming … and impossible to see and digest it all in one short visit. But it was also the perfect cap to our time at the museum.Read more