Story
The story of Kunstmuseum Basel
This museum's roots go back to a remarkable purchase. In 1661 the city and the University of Basel bought the Amerbach Cabinet, a collection that included works by Hans Holbein. That made it the first municipally owned museum in the world, and so open to the public.
It is why the Kunstmuseum Basel is said to house the oldest public art collection in the world, and it is generally considered the most important art museum in Switzerland. In 1671 the city decided to make the collection accessible, showing it in the House zur Mücke near the Minster. Today it holds the largest collection of works by the Holbein family, along with paintings and drawings from the Upper Rhine between 1400 and 1600. The journey continues through Rubens and Rembrandt, Monet, Gauguin, Cézanne and van Gogh, to Picasso, Paul Klee and Marc Chagall.
In the front courtyard, look for a permanent outdoor installation by Dan Flavin, set up in 1975.
This story is compiled from Wikipedia and other open sources; dates and numbers are checked against the source. The text is shared under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Source ↗
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More highlights in Basel
- Basel MinsterBasel Minster is a religious building in the Swiss city of Basel, originally a Roman Catholic cathedral and today a Reformed Protestant church. The original cathedral was built between 1019 and 1500 in Romanesque and Gothic styles.
- University of Basel Botanical GardenPublic botanical garden founded by Caspar Bauhin in 1589, the oldest in Switzerland and one of the oldest in the world.
- Gate of SpalenThe Basel city walls are a complex of walls surrounding the central part of the Swiss city of Basel, only partially preserved today. The first city wall was completed around 1080 under bishop Burkhard von Fenis.
- Museum of CulturesThe Museum of Cultures in Basel is a Swiss museum of ethnography with large and important collections of artifacts, especially from Europe, the South Pacific, Mesoamerica, Tibet, and Bali.
- Basel Town HallThe Basel Town Hall is a 500-year-old building dominating the Marktplatz in Basel, Switzerland. The Town Hall houses the meetings of the Cantonal Parliament as well as the Cantonal Government of the canton of Basel-Stadt.
- Mittlere BrückeThe Middle Bridge is a historic bridge in the Swiss city of Basel. It is situated on the oldest existing bridge site across the Rhine, between Lake Constance and the North Sea.