Vienna–April 15, 2019

Two museums today!

Naturhistorisches Museum (Natural History Museum)

The Natural History Museum is right across from the Kunsthistorisches Museum. It is housed in an elegant old building:

Stairway and marble archways

What I really wanted to see was the minerals exhibit. Normally, that’s one or two rooms, but, boy, did these people go 100%. There are four rooms packed with display cases:

View of room full of display cases

Ready? OK, here we go:

Large purple amythest geode Case of rectangular blocks of minerals Case full of minerals minerals Minerals, majority of which look like gold Large cross-section of green malachite Case with very large mineral samples Large quartz-like crystal 70-kg gold lump various minerals Sample that looks like interlocking rods multicolored mineral samples pink, white, and gray sample of eudialyte Very light green foam-like sample of aragonite Purple cubical crystal Blue cubical crystals Variety of colored mineral samples Mineral with iridescent streaks Purple colored mineral samples Large purple amythest multicolored mineral samples Mineral with milky pattern Purple mineral that looks like a clump of small beads Polished cross-section of several mineral samples Mineral with yellow, purple, blue, and green iridescent markings purple crystal Samples with mostly pink hue Mineral with small circular pattern Multiple green-colored mineral samples Light green cross-section Various green and gold minerals Light blue cross-section of polished mineral jewelry from flourite and chrysoberyl Blue opal Emeralds

Next up, a room of meteorites (no pictures from there), and then the dinosaurs/fossils. Frankly, such pictures all tend to look alike, so I’m including only one of them here:

fossil fish

Onwards to the stuffed animals; “stuffed” as in taxidermy, not as in “cute plush toys.“ Again, they have lots and lots of rooms full of these, but these are somehow creepier than the minerals, probably because they used to be living animals and minerals, well, they weren’t.

Ostrich/emu-like birds Display case of taxidermied birds Taxidermied kangaroo Taxidermied porcupine
Skeleton of elephant next to taxidermied elephant Skeleton of elephant next to stuffed elephant.
Taxidermied fawn You bastards! You killed Bambi!

Leopold Museum

The Leopold Museum had an exhibition of paintings by Oscar Kokoschka and works by artists in Vienna in 1900.

Painting of a street with flowers on a wall Closeup of flowers and street sign Drawing of man with beard Side view of cat Portrait of man in suit Portrait of bald man with glasses in suit Two portraits of children Self-portrait; holding cigarette holder Impressionist cityscape Portrait of Pablo Casals playing cello Bearded man in yarmulke and talit Art deco style poster with three women Art deco style stained glass of standing woman Variety of colored artistic glass vessels red, blue,and green glassware with geometric design Ceramic vessels, one in shape of a horse Painting with death on left, group of people on right Woman in orange dress Sculpture of green wheel in rectangular frame 1900 era chairs and table Portrait of seated woman in white robe with yellow trim Portrait of seated woman wearing multicolored clothing cityscape: crescent of houses People walking on snowy city street Portrait of man wearing red nightcap Self portrait man in blue suit holding palette and brush Row of small, somewhat abstract ceramc busts Sculpture of group of woman back-to-back Sculpture of man in hat and cape, head bowed Sculpture of man bent over, walking forward with scythe over his shoulder

Signage

A logo for a fresh egg delivery service, and a restaurant whose name translates to “Fork & Co.”

Logo resembles a chicken’s head, wth the center resembling an egg. Logo for gabel & co. with ampersand in shape of fork