The Kunsthistorisches Museum is situated in the district of Wien in the city of Vienna, Austria. This vibrantly decorated edifice is recognised as both an art history and fine arts museum and persists as the largest art museum in all of Austria. Permanent exhibits, as well as rotating galleries, make this location a popular tourist interest.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum is composed predominantly of collections from the influential Habsburg House. The ranking Ferdinand of Tirol, a former archduke of Austria, is responsible for a large quantity of the exhibitions as well as Archduke Leopold Wilhelm. Independently famous paintings include the Portrait of Cardinal Niccolò Albergati, Madonna of the Meadow, and works of art created by Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio and Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
The Kunsthistorisches Museum can be accessed by subway from the Westbahnhof to the Volkstheater station and by streetcar from the Hauptbahnhof to the Burgring/Kunsthistorisches Museum stop.
The museum was designed in the late 1800s by Gottfried Semper and Karl Freiherr von Hasenauer and opened to the public in the 1890s. The museum was proposed as a collection centre for the works of the Habsburg House and with its added diversity now attracts art lovers from around the world.