Belvedere Palace museum

Last night when we arrived at our airbnb, I noticed a large print of Klimt's "The Kiss" on the wall and I told our host about the Klimt exhibit we saw in Verona. She excitedly told us that Vienna has the world's largest permanent collection of Klimt's work, including "The Kiss", "Judith" and "The Bride" which was left unfinished on his easel when he died...in Vienna.
Today we went to the museum at the Belvedere Palace and saw the amazing collection of those and so much more. A feast.

And not to take away from the experience, but to temper it with a little reality, looted art, both from antiquity and more recently the Jewish Holocaust is a problem for museums and the Belvedere is a prime example. It has an exhibit regarding its collections and recently (ca. 2000) tried to adjudicate the provenance of its collection and tried to divest itself of works that were stolen by the nazis. However, only works that have been claimed by survivors has been returned. The world may never know to what extent looted art remains in museums today, including the Belvedere.Read more