Angelika Kauffmann (1741–1807)

The  Vorarlberger Landesmuseum as guest in the Salzburg Museum

The Vorarlberger Landesmuseum closed its doors in October 2009, before it re-opens again in 2013 with a new building, a new concept and a new programme. The Salzburg Museum is making the most of this phase and inviting the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum as its guest to Salzburg with a special exhibition.

Director Tobias Natter was the curator in 2007 of an exhibition on the painter Angelika Kauffmann (1741–1807), held on the bicentenary of her death. Numerous oil paintings and graphics from the rich holdings of the Vorarlberger Landesmuseum which formed the centre of the 2007 exhibition will be on show in Salzburg.

Contemporaries described Angelika Kauffmann as “a woman of prodigious talent”, others as “perhaps the most cultivated woman in Europe”; whatever, she counts as one of the most outstanding artists – male or female – of her time. Angelika Kauffmann was born in Chur, Switzerland in 1741, but always felt great affinity to her chosen home of Schwarzenberg. Her artistic development as a painter is shown against the background of her extraordinary career as a woman in the midst of a world dominated by men in London and Rome.

18 November 2010 - 20 February 2011

ART OF THE MIDDLE AGES

from the Collections of the Salzburg Museum

Starting in December 2010, the Salzburg Museum will be presenting a representative selection of medieval artworks from its own collection; this will cover the whole of the first floor of the Neue Residenz, an exhibition area of around 1,000 m². On show will be works from all departments of the museum, ranging from the Early Middle Ages to around 1520. The special feature will be the exhibition’s arrangement, not chronological, but based around individual topics. The museum has chosen specifically to dispense with loaned works in the show in order to focus on the rich collections of the Salzburg Museum.

The archaeology department will show excavation finds; the library will display some ninth-century medieval manuscript fragments for the first time which were later re-used as book covers. The applied arts department will exhibit a selection of gold and silver works, furniture and textiles. Greatest scope will be given to the sculpture and painting collections; among the exhibits are works by Rueland Frueauf and Conrad Laib, paintings by artists with quasi-improvised names such as the Masters of the Aspach Altar, the Virgo inter Virgines or the Nicholas Altar. The highlights include several new acquisitions – a Crucifixion by the Master of St. Leonhard, also a monumental Romanesque crucifix. Gloriously restored and gleaming anew next to these are masterpieces like the Rauris Altar or the Hallein Crucifixion group by Veit Stoss.

Having a presentation based on thematic complexes allows stylistic comparison between the various periods and also spotlights iconographic developments. Works from the Early Middle Ages are placed next to Late Gothic artworks, presenting an overview of almost 800 years of artistic activity in the Archbishopric of Salzburg.

16 Dezember 2010 - 29 January 2012 

Salzburg Christmas Cribs

One of the most striking features of the Salzburg Museum’s collection of cribs is its refreshing diversity of forms and creative interpretations that have emerged in local crib-making throughout the centuries. In other words, the collection is not restricted to one stylistic, idiosyncratic form in the interpretation of the genre. Hence variety is the primary motto of the coming Christmas exhibition, and, secondly, the important new acquisitions gained in recent years in this area of collecting.

In its presentation of new acquisitions, the museum is able to express its thanks to the many private persons who have left their cribs as gifts to the Folklore Collection.

This has made it possible in 2010 to present to the public – among many other exhibits – the private crib of the Salzburg painter Wilhelm Kaufmann (1901–1999) and the impressive cribs by Vinzenz Schreiner, who left a considerable part of his oeuvre to the Folklore Collection of the Salzburg Museum.

26 November 2010 - 9 January 2011