museum spotlight
Opening of the Weltmuseum in Vienna
A City Revisits Its Relationship with the World
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Connoisseurs of non-European art have
been awaiting the reopening of the ethnographic
museum in Vienna for a long time now. With its
more than 200,000 objects, 100,000 period photographs,
and 46,000 printed works, it is, by any
standard, one of the world’s most important museums
of its kind. Its holdings tell the story of centuries
of collecting activity, notably by the Habsburg
family, and they document Austria’s relations with
the world in a unique way. After three years of renovation
and remodeling work supervised by its director,
Steven Engelsman, it opened its doors last October
25 under a new name as Weltmuseum Wien in a
wing of the Hofburg Imperial Palace on the Heldenplatz.
The new installation revisits the little-known
history of the museum and its collection, presenting
it in a new setting that is fi nally commensurate
with the quality of its objects, which, though much
admired worldwide, have long been subject to the
whims of Austrian cultural policies.
FiG. 1 (above): shield.
Aztec, central mexico.
early 16th century.
Feathers, gold, cane, leather, cotton,
rabbit fur. D: 78 cm.
ex schloss Ambras.
Weltmuseum Wien, inv. 43.380.
All images:
© KHm museumsverband.
FiG. 2 (below): Fan.
Central mexico. First half of
the 16th century.
Yellow and red macaw feathers, bark
paper, cane. D: 68 cm.
ex schloss Ambras.
Weltmuseum Wien, inv. 43.381.
By Tamara Schild