The total holdings of the archive currently comprise around 30,000 archive units organised into 25 archive groups with the following focal points: Director's files of the department heads (from 1919); collection files (from approx. 1880); personnel files; estates of former employees; exhibition documentation and visitor statistics; manuscripts and typescripts; general administration files (from 1889); accounting; service regulations (from 1889), historical plans (from 1875), files on confiscation during the Nazi era, on salvage during the Second World War and on restitution after 1945; collection of historical photos on the history of the museum (from approx. 1880); posters; newspaper archive (from 1866), collection of audiovisual media as well as artefacts and image sources on the history of the house.
Archive
The Archive of the Kunsthistorisches Museum is an historical specialist archive. It consists of a central archive for the general needs of the Museum and of permanent loans in the collections and departments of the institution. The archive is accessible by appointment. Due to the small number of workplaces, it is necessary to make an appointment in advance at info.archiv@khm.at.
About the department
Search the archive
A small selection of the archival holdings can be found in the Online Collection.
Research projects
Lectures
Contact
Requests and appointments
+43 1 525 24- 5611
info.archiv@khm.at
Adress
Entrance via Weltmuseum Wien
Heldenplatz, 1010 Wien
Information
The museum archive is open to visitors only by prior arrangement.
History of the collection
Even before the museum’s formal inauguration on 17 October 1891, a civil servant had been appointed in 1889 who was to relieve the collections—soon to be united in a single building—of administrative tasks. The records of this newly established administrative unit, which was an external bureau of the office of the grand master of the imperial court (Oberstkämmereramt), have remained in the museum and continue today to form the nucleus of its archives. The largest part of other documents relating to the museum from the grand master’s office, which oversaw Kunsthistorisches Museum until the fall of the Habsburg monarchy, was subsequently deposited in the Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv. Other holdings were transferred to the education ministry, under the authority of which the museum was placed in 1919.
Over the years
Since mid-2009 Franz Pichorner, deputy director general and secretary general of Kunsthistorisches Museum, had acted as director of the museum archives and was also responsible for matters related to provenance. Since 2025, Hanna Schneck has headed the Archives and Libraries department at the KHM Museum Association.
In 1983 the Museum of Austrian Culture was separated from the Kunsthistorisches Museum Group. A part of the premises that became vacant thereby in the Neue Burg was set aside to house the archive, which Herbert Haupt was appointed to direct. The archive was established as an independent department by unanimous resolution of the directors of the museum collections and the decision of the Federal Minister for Science and Research of 4 June 1986. Finally, the archive was given the status of a museum collection, KHM’s twelfth, by the Museum Statute of Kunsthistorisches Museum (Federal Gazette II 463/1998), which entered force on 1 January 1999. The museum archive was included in the Federal Archive Act (Federal Gazette I 162/1999) that became law on 1 January 2000.
Herbert Haupt headed the archive from 1989 through 2009. During his tenure as director Haupt continued research initiated by Alphons Lhotsky into the history of Kunsthistorisches Museum and resumed the series of editions of source materials and document summaries in the Jahrbuch des Kunsthistorischen Museums. Haupt introduced and promoted in-house provenance research. This extensive scholarly activity was reflected in numerous publications and the study of new holdings that were regularly added to the collections. Haupt also succeeded in enlarging the archives’ premises.
Since mid-2009 Franz Pichorner, deputy director general and secretary general of Kunsthistorisches Museum, has acted as director of the museum archives and is responsible for matters related to provenance.