Visual Arts Before 1800

Several oil portraits of the Salzburg archbishops were mentioned already in the first annual report of the then Municipal Museum. There are also references to portraits of Elector Ferdinand of Tuscany, King Maximilian I of Bavaria, and Emperor Franz I of Austria.
At the time, they served to document Salzburg’s recent history. The department formerly known as the ‘Painting Collection’ has now been newly established under the title ‘Visual Arts Before 1800’. It includes both paintings and sculpture, with a significant focus on Gothic works, as well as the Rossacher Collection.

Acquisitions for the ‘Visual Arts Before 1800’ Collection are based on what is available on the art market. The museum has repeatedly succeeded in acquiring interesting views of the city of Salzburg, and in the past, several individual acquisitions have also been made in the area of Gothic sculpture. The research focuses primarily on works of art that disappeared from Salzburg in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars and the changes of 1800–1816 and may reappear on the art market. The Salzburg Cultural Heritage Database serves as an important foundation for this work.

The Rossacher Collection is devoted to the Baroque art of preparatory design and was compiled between the 1950s and the 1970s. In 1970, Kurt Rossacher (1918–1988), the founder of the collection, transferred his collection to the city and province of Salzburg on the condition of establishing an autonomous museum for it, which was realised in Mirabell Gardens. In 2012, the museum was closed and the Rossacher Collection was integrated into Salzburg Museum. Exhibitions are presented at various intervals in the North Oratory of DomQuartier Salzburg. Designs can take the form of oil sketches and hand drawings, also sculptor’s models (around 350 objects) in clay or wood. From an artistic perspective, these are quick sketches – fleeting thoughts captured on paper. This spontaneous, impulsive, and simultaneously expressive element makes a very ‘modern’ impression, even after 300 years. The collection contains works by Peter Paul Rubens, Luca Giordano, Paul Troger, Johann Michael Rottmayr, Martino Altomonte, Carlo Innocenzo Carlone, and Michael Zürn the Younger.