Residenzgalerie - Museum of Old Masters

As a former location of princely representation the province gallery, founded with the collections Czernin and Schönborn-Buchheim, illustrates an essential part of Salzburg’s history. CastYourArt talked to Dr. Roswitha Juffinger who has been head of the Residenzgalerie Salzburg for 25 years, about her ambitious plans.
This podcast was realised with the kind support of UNIQUA ArtCercles.

The reopening of the Lange Galerie in September 2009 marked the beginning of the implementation of an ambitious museum concept, planned to be finished by 2013: To reconstitute a connection of the premises of the dome square within the interior of the adjacent buildings as well, and to create accessibility between the residence, the dome, the Lange Galerie, the Wallistrakt until the Franziskanerkirche – all with the purpose to reconstruct the unity of secular and ecclesiastic building, interiors and collections dissolved after the first world war, and to reconstitute the connection between the histories of building and of political domination:

The Residenzgalerie of today was founded in 1923 with the purpose to provide an exclusive and first-class museum to the Salzburg festival. Up to the year of 1803 Salzburg had been a prince-archbishopric. In 1124 a residence for the bishop was constructed in the eastern wing of the residence which subsequently has been renewed, renovated and remodeled for representation. Until 1918 the Habsburg dynasty used the premises as representational building. The newly founded museum should then function as a replacement of the archiepiscopal collection lost in the Napoleonic wars. If nothing else one reason for the new founding was the promotion of tourism. The museum however did not possess a single exhibit of its own at the time of its establishment. It was set up exclusively with loan collections. Until its closure after 1938 the museum had acquired approximately 30 pieces. Until then it had not been able to live up to the expectations placed on it.

During the 2nd world war the arts dealer Friedrich Welz was sent to France in order to purchase French art of the 19th century. Great parts of the French works of art were restituted to France by the American occupying power through the Central Collecting point in Munich. Nevertheless, overall 150 works of the collection established by Friedrich Welz during the 2nd world war have been incorporated into the Residenzgalerie Salzburg museum, reopened in 1952.

In the years between 1956 and 1994 a significant part of the formerly private collection of Johann Rudolf Czernin was purchased by the federal state of Salzburg for the Residenzgalerie. Two more exhibits were donated to the province by the collector. Today, main works of the Czernin collection are found in the most prominent museums of the world.

In 1983 the Residenzgalerie transfered the entire collection of 20. Century exhibits to the newly founded Rupertinum and thus became a small but extremely important collection of European baroque art with further focal points of 17th century Dutch painting and 19th century Austrian painting.

At the reopening of the Liechtenstein Museum, under the label „private Art Collections“, a fusion of collections was undertaken which had their origins in the cultural patronage of the aristocracy or private collector’s activities – among them the Residenzgalerie Salzburg with its stock of the Czernin collection and the picture gallery of the Vienna academy of fine arts with the paintings transferred from the collection of count Lemberg.
The initiative has the goal of mutual support e.g. by lending works without any fees and has led to an increase in publicity for the individual collections as well as to a revival of interest for baroque painting. (bl/ca)

Copyright info: The audio and video recording has been made with personal permission of the artist.
Licensing: 0
Language(s): German, English
Subtitles: German, English
Producer: KA21 GmbH / CastYourArt
Production country: Salzburg, Austria