Tuni01

We love seeing art museums that have works from 1300s to 1900s. We've seen Paris, London, St. Petersburg, Rome. What are some of your favorites?

USNR

Die Alte Pinakothek, Munich

JoeTro

Thyssen in Madrid.

elaine

Kunsthistoriches, Vienna

OReilly

Its so hard to choose!

Concentrating on the MAJOR galleries, my personal favourites are:
The Borghese in Rome
http://www.galleriaborghese.it/borghese/en/edefault.htm

The Prado, Madrid:
http://museoprado.mcu.es/ihome.html

Thyssen, Madrid:
http://www.museothyssen.org/Ingles/index.htm

The Louvre, of course, particularly the collections from the “Low Countries”:
http://www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm

The National Gallery London:
http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

There are many smaller galleries I have enjoyed on my travels and individual works of art in churches in Italy and Spain.

Also, I would recommend the following museums:

The British Museum, London (great Egyptian collection):
http://www.thebritishmuseum.ac.uk/

The Victoria & Albert, London:
http://www.vam.ac.uk/

The CAPITOLINE, Rome
http://www.museicapitolini.org/en/index_msie.htm

The Vatican Museum, Rome (the paintings are mostly ordinary, but it is an interesting historical museum):
http://mv.vatican.va/3_EN/pages/MV_Home.html

The Louvre, again (great Egyptian collection):
http://www.louvre.fr/louvrea.htm


A couple of jewels specific to the Roman past:

Naples Archaeological Museum, Italy
http://www.cib.na.cnr.it/remuna/mann/mann.html

Merida, Extremadura, Spain:
http://www.museoromano.com/

There are just too many wonderful galleries and museums to visit in one lifetime, and you remind me that I have to visit them all again!

Regards Ger

Garfield

The Hermitage in St Petersburg. It's 350 rooms contain over three million items. More than 12,000 sculptures, 16,000 paintings, 600,000 drawings and prints and many works of applied art, coins and medals. Only a small percentage of articles are on display.

stanj

Garfield: And when you are "finished" with the 3,800,000 items in the main collection, you can visit the new Hermitage annex in the General Staff across the Palace Sq. and then after that, view the 400,000 pieces of Russian art a moderate walk away in the 4 buildings/palaces that form the State Russian Museum. If that does not fully fill up your time, visit the new Hermitage porcelain annex at the Lomonosov china factory down the river a bit....and then....
Seriously, the Hermitage has the second best collection of each era and national origin of western European art. So if you want it all, the best place to see significant works in each style and period head to St Petersburg or visit 15 different specialty museums in Europe.
I recently returned from over a year and a half living in St Petersburg and still did not see a fraction of the collections available, but I did visit 120 museums, most within walking distance of my apartment.
Stan

Giovanna

Tuni01: Certainly not up there with the Louvre, Dorsay, Prado, etc., but since you're planning to go to Prague, try to visit the Mucha Museum. We enjoyed it very much and it is open on Monday (so many museums aren't).

Ingo

Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden
www.skd-dresden.de

Includes Old and New Masters Picture Gallery, (New) Green Vault collection, Sculptures, Prints and Drawings, Porcelain, Coins, Old Scientific Instruments, Watches/Clocks, Museum of Decorative Arts ...

USNR

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Carolina Collection, Copenhagen

Several on Museuminsel, Berlin

Armory Museum, in the Kremlin, Moscow

Thyssen Collection, Cologne

Franz Hals House, Haarlem

Fine Arts Museum, Antwerp

USNR

Sorry...I goofed...it's the Louisiana (not the Carolina) Museum, north of Copenhagen, along the coast.

JoeTro

UNSR I did not realize that Thyssen had a collection in Cologne. Do you know where this is? I am going in a week and my museums checked out, but I did not see this on the Cologne Tourism website. Thanks.

111op

I've not seen that many museums. Would do the following grouping of the museums by schools up to 1750 or so. After that period, it's fairly obvious which museums are best for the various national schools.

<b> Flemish Primitives </b>: I recently researched this in some detail and did a trip looking at some of this art (blogged about it here):

http://makeashorterlink.com/?I29031A8A

Unfortunately I missed the Antwerp museum, but I'd say that the best of the lot is the Groeninge Museum in Brugge. I'll have to make it to the Antwerp museum some time.

The Fine Arts Museum in Brussels is also quite amazing, and I only saw a small part of it.

Prado has an important work by van der Weyden.

Interested to see &quot;Arnolfini Marriage&quot; in the National Gallery by van Eyck.

Fast forward -- <b> Low Countries after 1500 </b>:

Bosch in Prado, Brug(h)el in Kunsthistorisches museum in Vienna (again, I guess this has something to do with the history of the region, no doubt).

Rubens in Antwerp (didn't get to check this out really except for the Cathedral, which has some amazing masterpieces). Medici rooms in the Louvre (Rubens).

<b> Dutch Golden Age </b>: Obviously the Rijksmuseum. But also the Mauritshuis (has three Vermeers, if I remember right). These two have seven Vermeers out of the extant 35 (?).

<b> Italian Renaissance </b>: I think that the jewel is the Uffizi. Vatican museums. The Louvre also has a very rich collection (including Mona Lisa, of course). I didn't get a chance to see the Accademia in Venice (I think that the most important work here is probably the Giorgione &quot;Tempest&quot.

I think the Louvre easily gets the &quot;most comprehensive and amazing museum&quot; award of all museums.

Don't know but interested to see -- museums in Dresden and Munich. And also obviously the Hermitage, which I've not seen at all either.

martytravels

Madrid's museum row is killer: The Prado, The Reina Sofia and the Thyssen are pretty tough to top as a trio.

jsmith

The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge.

Picasso in Barcelona.

Hunterian in Glasgow - Whistler.

Tate Britain in London - Sargent,

Clore Gallery (attached to the Tate) for JMW. If you don't know JMW, don't ask.

Glytopek (sp?) in Copenhagen for Degas bronzes and Gaugin paintings and wood carvings.

Marmatton in Paris for Monet

National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh - Rubens, Titian, Hals, Raphael, Tintoretto, Gainsborough, Reynolds

National Gallery in Oslo - Munch

USNR

JoeTro: my memory is playing tricks...again...but I know the Thyssen family gave its personal art collection to be housed within a new museum in Cologne. What this place is called escapes me, but having seen the collection I can attest that it is first class. Maybe Google could help if you typed in Thyssen and saw what popped up? It's worth a try.

JoeTro

Thanks; the major one i was thinking of is Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
Fondation Corboud. Is this what you had in mind?

mclaurie

Florence and Venice!!

Underhill

certainly several in vienna.

payant

In Vienna, the Kunsthistorische is not only a great museum with major Rubens holdings but also the greatest number of major Breughel the elder works. In addition the museum is a magnificent building lovingly restored. Klimt has several lunettes in the main staircase. Add the holdings in the newly reopened Leichenstein, the medieval holdings in the lower Belvedere and and the Durer in the Albertina and you have a week of looking to do.
As a bonus the Albertina has a great cafe run by Do&amp;Co. Sit in the entrance hallway near the kitchen and you can catch the salsa background music that powers the chef.