General about the Fine Art Museum in Admont

The “Kunsthistorische Museum” - the Museum of Fine Arts - contains important objects from the Romanesque to Baroque periods, glass paintings, panel paintings, sculptures, oil paintings and objects from the church treasury. Impressive and for the most part in large glass cases is the annually changing selection from the collection of liturgical cloth. Among these are Gerbhard’s Mitre (end of the 14th century) and the vestments from the embroidery workshop of Frater Benno Haan in which world-class textile works of art were produced in the 17th and 18th centuries.

For the occasion of the 250th anniversary of Fr. Benno Haan’s admission to Admont Monastery in 1656 a number of his best works will be exhibited this year. Among the most important exhibits are: a portable altar (1375), Gebhard’s Crozier (12th/13th century), a crozier with a narwhal’s tooth from about 1680, canvas paintings by Martin Johann Schmidt, known as Kremser-Schmidt (1718-1801), and by Martino (1657-1745) and Bartolomeo Altomonte (1694-1783).

A special room is devoted to the Monastery sculptor Josef Stammel (1695-1765). As of 2005 two objects from the Old Gallery in the Graz Joanneum Provincial Museum have been on loan for two years:

- Christ as Salvator Mundi crowning Maria. The unknown artist, who was active in the late 15th century, belonged to a Tyrolean workshop which carried on from Michael Pacher.

- “St. Martin giving his cloak” by Georg Remele (died 1674) from around 1650/60. This imposing, polychrome carving shows St. Martin of Tours on horseback and handing his cloak to the beggar.

The exhibits in the last room behind the picture gallery are changed every year. It is available to contemporary artists for an artistic “intervention”. Only a portal separates Baroque art from that of our time, one traverses over 200 years when going through. One becomes aware of just how much Admont Monastery has once again since Baroque times identified itself with contemporary art and sponsors the culture of our time in the Museum.