Photo: Verbund Oö. Museen

OÖ. Jagdmuseum

St. Florian, Upper Austria

ausstellungmuseumstour

With its abundance of historical and art-historical objects, the Upper Austrian Hunting Museum in Hohenbrunn Castle, opened in 1967, is considered one of the most significant in the German-speaking world. Hohenbrunn Castle is the only documented castle construction by the great Baroque master builder Jakob Prandtauer. Built between 1722 and 1732 on behalf of the then Provost Johann Baptist Födermayr of St. Florian, the castle is considered the Baroque idealization of the Upper Austrian Vierkanthof (four-sided farmstead) typical for the region between Traun and Enns. The Hunting Museum serves to cultivate hunting tradition and to spread understanding for hunting. The development of hunting is presented using historical and art-historical objects such as weapons, their accessories, and pictures from four centuries. Further focal points of the museum collection are hunting porcelain, rare weapons, and the hunting cynological collection of Freiherr von Bistram, which displays dog collars (Halsungen) in many variations from the period 1580 to 1804. Outstanding among the Baroque paintings exhibited in the castle is "The Bear Hunt" by Franz Snyders from Antwerp (1579–1657), a specialist in animal painting.