Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum

The Tyrolean State Museum Ferdinandeum (German: Tiroler Landesmuseen) in Innsbruck is the largest museum in the Austrian Tyrol; it is dedicated to history and art from Prehistory to the 20th century, natural history, and music.

The museum was founded in 1823 and entitled to the Archduke Ferdinand (later Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria). The current renaissance-style building of the museum was completed in 1845 after a design by architect Anton Mutschlechner, while the facade, completed in 1884, was designed by Italian architect Natale Tommasi.

As not unusual in the 19th century, the museum was intended as an encyclopaedic institution, with collections of history, books and manuscripts, fine arts, musical instruments, archaeology, ethnography, and natural history.

However, the art collection of the Ferdinandeum is widely considered the most important one.
It comprises paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures, and miniatures dating from the Middle Ages to the modern era. The collection includes pieces mostly made by Austrian, Dutch and German artists, such as Lucas Cranach, Bernhard Strigel, Caspar Gras, Rembrandt van Rijn, Joseph Anton Koch, Angelika Kauffmann, Oskar Kokoschka, and Egon Schiele, among others.

The collections of history, archaeology, ethnography and musical instruments mostly focus on the Tyrolean region (which historically encompassed, along with the Austrian Tyrol, also the South Tyrol and Trentino regions of Italy).
The natural history collection, amounting to over 2,6 million specimens, is primarily dedicated to flora and fauna of the Alpine region.

The Tyrolean State Museum Fedinandeum also includes a remarkable library, with over 280,000 volumes, temporary exhibition spaces, a restaurant and a cafeteria.

All images courtesy  Tiroler Landesmuseen