Page - 392 - in Die kaiserliche Gemäldegalerie in Wien und die Anfänge des öffentlichen Kunstmuseums - Europäische Museumskultur um 1800, Volume 2

392 Meijers From an International Perspective But in addition to this, the different exhibits that had been added to the collection in the following years also referred to the achievements of the Hapsburg dynasty. For instance, there was the Sammlung Kraushaar, a collection of portraits, maps and atlases illustrating Austria’s history from 1454–1705, set up under the name ‘Maximilian library’, because it also contained a charter and a portrait of Maximilian I in his youth.18 What would, after all, have still been called a Kunstkammer a few decades earlier had, by 1855, become more of a historical museum displaying the achievements of the dynasty, intended for and actually visited by a broad public, including children.19 Temporary solution or precursor? This was how the Belvedere development, unlike museums in the German states of around 1815, had gradually been given a dynastic and encyclopedic boost – begging the ques- tion: should we see this as a precursor of the same two qualities which would later be the hallmarks of the new Hofmuseum on the Kaiserforum? Or to put it another way, did this de- velopment stem from merely practical considerations, amounting in fact to a “Notlösung”, as some authors suggest?20 Or was something more structural taking place – a deliberate choice to combine these differing sorts of collections, including the picture gallery, specif- ically on this site? The latter explanation seems more likely, for there were even plans for a further extension. In my view the concept of the dynastic total museum of the Ringstrasse was already in statu nascendi at the Belvedere, although practical factors probably played a role here too. Seen from the perspective of the court authorities, transporting the Ambras collection to this country estate was a logical step. Where else could these suits of armour and valu- able curiosities be shown to an ever-increasing public? There was no convenient place in the Hofburg and it would have been difficult to find space for the construction of new buildings inside the town walls. The Belvedere was already in use as a museum, with its painting gallery which drew visitors from home and abroad. So opting for this location for the Ambras collection must have been a foregone conclusion. Even though pragmatism may have played a role in the choice of location, however, it does not mean that we are dealing with a “Notlösung” here. That is attested to by se veral plans that were launched by the Cabinet of coins and antiquities, situated in the Augusti- nergang of the Hofburg – the department which the Ambras collection fell under. There is an unimplemented proposal dating from 1816 to move this cabinet in its entirety from its cramped quarters to the Unteres Belvedere.21 Another plan, launched by the curator Josef Ritter von Arneth in 1833, was more selective and betrays a more specific motive. Arneth proposed to leave the coins, cameos and “Preziosen” in the Burg as these were important for specialists, but to accommodate all the other more popular art collections in the Un- teres Belvedere. As Lhotsky put it, Arneth’s aim in relocating the art collections to the Bel- vedere was to make them more accessible, prompted as he was by a belief that works of art were a ‘Mittel des Unterrichtes und der Bildung’.22 The proposal moreover affected not only the art, but also the natural history collections. This was incidentally not the first such attempt: there is even a design drawing for a museum of natural history, dating presum- ably from around 1820, and intended to be sited in the Kammergarten, next to the Unteres Belvedere. Because it was common practice everywhere to include ethnology under nat- ural history,23 it would seem not improbable that this museum design was also intended for the ethnographic objects, which were the spoils of the expedition to the Portuguese colony of Brazil ordered by Emperor Franz II (I) in 1817 on the occasion of his daughter Maria Leopoldine’s marriage to the Portuguese heir to the throne, Dom Pedro. It was dur- ing these years after all that a search was being conducted for suitable premises to display this rapidly growing collection.24