Current Exhibits

The emerald source in the Habachtal valley, at Bramberg in Oberpinzgau, is the only significant occurrence of emeralds in Central Europe and has been known since 1669.

Duchess Anna Maria de Medici mentioned the emerald mine in a letter to her brother Gian Gastone, the last Grand Duke Medici of Tuscany, at the beginning of the 18th century, in reference to a report by the Danish priest and naturalist Niels Stensen.

Favourable geological conditions have allowed emeralds to form in the talcose mica schist over the millennia. The six-sided beryls, which, structurally, belong to the cyclosilicates group, were coloured green by chromium. The more chromium there is in the beryl, the more intensive the green.

Seven Habachtal emeralds were set into Abbot Albert Nagnzaun’s splendid pectoral cross in 1786. Nagnzaun, as Albert IV, was abbot of St. Peter’s Abbey from 1818 until his death in 1856. The pectoral cross is now kept in St. Peter’s.

Alois Steiner, a geologist from Bramberg, was able to make a significant discovery when he split open talcose schist rock to find a 40 cm mineral layer with 24 nearly pure, deep green emeralds. It was in the shape of the Madonna and is known as the Emerald Madonna (TXTL1) today. This layer of emeralds can be admired in the Museum Bramberg in the national park exhibition Emeralds and Crystals.

At 2200 m above sea level, a total of four tunnels were made in the mountain over the course of its colourful mining history, of which only one is still used for maintenance work. The entire site belongs to a lawyer family from Munich; entering the tunnels is prohibited without exception because of the risk of falling rocks

Over the millennia, the emeralds have become scattered in the slip rock due to erosion. With a certain level of patience they can be found next to or above the Alpenrose inn in the Habachtal valley with relatively little danger involved.

The march of the 1731 and 1732 émigrés from Salzburg to East Prussia caused a great stir among the German principalities and also found its expression in the visual arts.

The two portraits show a man and woman in typical Salzburg dress. The man has a prayer book in his right hand in which you can even recognise the Bible passages. In his left is a walking stick and on his back, a large, wooden box in which the émigrés carried their essentials, needed on their long march. Even the details are precise; the man’s initials appear on his braces.

The woman is carrying her child on her back in a linen cloth. She too has a prayer book, in her left hand, and a walking stick in her right. Above her is the inscription ‘Salzburg Exile Anno Domini 1732’.

The origin of the portraits is unknown.

Very close to where mining administrator, tourism pioneer and painter Michael Hofer worked lies the Grundbach estate.

This oil-on-cardboard painting by Hofer shows a classic Pinzgau farm with a brickwork lower and timbered upper storey. The larch shingles used for roofing at that time are easy to make out, as are the stones placed on the finished roof to secure it.

Once again, Michael Hofer proves he has a good eye for the beauties of nature and developing architecture of the Pinzgau farms.

The picture is the property of the Leogang Mining and Gothic Museum and signed ‘M. Hofer’ on the bottom left.