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132 ART TOUR

HISTORY MORE ART TOURS 1

Fine Art Travel
REVISITED Europe’s impressive
With access to
As Vienna’s Ringstrasse turns private houses and
150 this year, Julian Allason museums, itineraries
visits the grand museums include a palace
and palaces circling its route on the Grand Canal
in Venice, a majestic
Baroque palazzo
t has been 150 years since the in Rome and a visit
Austrian emperor Josef II to the Alhambra.
ordered Vienna’s ramparts finearttravel.co.uk
demolished to make way for the Martin Randall
I -lined necklace of palaces Martin Randall offers
tree
and museums that is the Ringstrasse. art history tours that
In celebration, the capital’s great delve as far back as
galleries – and of those there are many the Dark Ages and
– have mounted special exhibitions. span the globe.
Vienna’s transformation from impe- See masterpieces
rial military capital to city of culture in Munich and
is evident in the architectural models cave art in Spain.
on display at the Wien Museum martinrandall.com
(wienmuseum.at). A stroll through the ACE Cultural
The 2016 itinerary
pedestrianised city centre will bring
one to the Ringstrasse’s jewel, the includes art on
the Côte d’Azur
Kunsthistorisches Museum (khm.at), and the seventeenth
which exhibits treasures acquired by
and eighteenth
the Habsburg Empire over centuries. century art and 2
From here, a magnificent double
architecture of Naples.
staircase ascends to the Kunstkammer. aceculturaltours.co.uk
This museum-within-a-museum pre-
sents a work from each of the principal
collections, making it easy to identify areas of interest. Some exhibits are
notorious: Cellini’s gold salt cellar was recently stolen and recovered. Others 3
are extraordinary: a seventeenth-century gilt robot galleon ‘sailed’ across
the royal dinner table to fire a canon; the guest hit by the cannonball
had to down his glass. As Jasper Sharp, curator of the museum, shows us
around, he stops to examine Old Masters such as Raphael’s Madonna of
the Meadow and Bruegel’s Tower of Babel.
This top-level tour forms part of a four-day ‘Inspired Journey’ arranged by WAYS AND
British luxury travel specialist Cazenove + Loyd in collaboration with the Art
Fund. The itinerary also includes an expedition to Schloss Rohrau (schloss- MEANS 4
rohrau.at), where Haydn’s mother worked as a cook to Count Harrach. The Julian Allason travelled
castle houses one of the most significant – and least known – private collec- as a guest of Cazenove
tions in Europe, the outcome of accumulations made by generations of counts + Loyd (020-7384 2332;
who represented the Empire as ambassadors to Spain, and includes works by cazloyd.com). A four-day
artists like Luca Giordano, Vernet and Panini. Now ours to enjoy. journey to Vienna escorted
The last stop is at the studio of the award-winning contemporary artist by Jasper Sharp, curator of
Peter Kogler (kogler.net). This is a rare opportunity to question a major artist the Kunsthistorisches, costs
about work in progress. On this trip most guests stay at the Hotel Imperial from £1,800 per person 5
(imperialvienna.com) on the Ringstrasse, originally the palace of the Prince of based on three nights at
Württemberg, in which Emperor Franz Josef I’s portrait still dominates the Hotel Imperial with two © PRISMA ARCHIVO; HERITAGE IMAGE PARTNERSHIP LTD/ALAMY; KMH–MUSEUMSVERBAND
ceremonial staircase. This is architecture as high art. But then so is the cognac sharing, including road
infused Esterházy torte served opposite at Café Schwarzenberg (cafe- transfers, private guiding,
schwarzenberg.at), still riddled with Russian bullets. In Vienna art and history admissions and some
are as ubiquitous as coffee and pastries, and just as much part of daily life meals, but excluding flights.

1 The interior of Kunsthistorisches Museum. 2 The exterior is crowned with an octagonal dome. 3 The seventeenth-century
galleon on display at the Kunsthistorisches. 4 Bruegel’s The Tower of Babel, 1563. 5 Raphael’s Madonna of the Meadow, c.1505-6

NOVEMBER 2015 HOUSEANDGARDEN.CO.UK