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.

A particularly valuable exhibit from the Gothic Room of the Mining and Gothic Museum in Leogang is the winged altarpiece from the Frey collection. The first item from the Frey collection, it was acquired by friends of the museum in 2008 and then donated to it. Carl von Frey (1826-1896) was a successful businessman who, in the second half of the 19th century, assembled Salzburg’s largest private collection of Gothic art.

The altarpiece was probably built around 1520 in Lower Bavaria. The shrine, predella and wings are made in spruce and the sculptures in lime wood. The wings are painted on both sides. The interior shows St. Barbara and St. Margaret, each on a gold brocade background. The exterior shows the Annunciation. Below it, on the predella, is Jesus making a blessing gesture and holding a globe, along with the 12 apostles.

The shrine or ‘retable’ has been preserved more or less in its original state. Mary is standing in the centre of the base with the Infant Jesus. At her feet is a crescent moon. To the left and right of the Mother of God are St. Mary Magdalene and St. Catherine.

Mary corresponds to the Apocalyptic style of Madonnas with the golden rays on the back wall of the shrine symbolising the sun. Mary carries the lively, cross-legged Infant Jesus on her right arm, who is reaching with both arms towards his mother. In her left hand the Madonna holds a fruit which her child is trying to grab.

The Blessed Mother’s robes consist of a golden dress gathered below the chest with a round neckline and golden sleeves. A golden mantle hangs on her shoulders, the blue lining of which is visible in the drapery.

Folds fall in long lanes down to the base. Her oval-shaped, harmonious face with its high forehead is framed by open strands of hair that spill loosely onto the shoulders. The Madonna is wearing a leafy crown.

St. Catherine, occupying the place of honour on the right side of the Mother of God, holds a sword in her left hand. There is a broken wheel at her feet – a symbol of martyrdom. In her right hand she is presenting an open book. On her head is a simple gold crown. The rich folds of her golden mantle reveal its green lining as if swept up by a gust of wind.

To the left of the Blessed Mother is St. Mary Magdalene. She is wearing a veil placed carefully on her shoulders and holding a golden, tapered anointing vessel with both hands.

The winged altarpiece from the Frey collection was exhibited in Salzburg in 1888 at the 40th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I’s coronation.

The oldest representation of an Apocalyptic Madonna is the Crescent Moon Madonna in Hortus Delicarium by Herrad of Landsberg. The image of the Crescent Moon Madonna goes back to the account of John’s vision of a cosmic, pregnant woman crowned with stars and clothed by the sun with the moon beneath her feet, who is menaced by a dragon following an apocalyptic battle between the dragon and the Archangel Michael.

From the beginning of the 16th century until the end of the 18th century, Leogang was famous throughout Europe for its abundance of cobalt and nickel ores.

From the mid-16th century, cobalt ores were of particular importance. In blue colouring works’, safflorite was first produced by heating cobalt ore. This served as the raw material for the production of smalt, a powdery blue glass pigment. Since both safflorite and smalt are fireproof, they were used for colouring glass, porcelain, ceramics and oil paints.

Coloured Venetian glass was seen as a special luxury in the German-speaking countries of Europe from the mid-15th century. German merchants such as the Welser and Fugger families had already founded the Fondaco dei Tedeschi (‘the Germans’ warehouse’) in Venice in 1225. Situated on the Canale Grande right next to the famous Rialto Bridge, the building became the trading centre for luxury export goods from Venice to the German-speaking countries.

As the use of safflorite and smalt for colouring glass increased, cobalt from Salzburg became an indispensable raw material for the production of luxury Venetian glass from the mid-16th century.

Its extraction and use in glassware is mentioned in Georg Agricola’s De re metallica Libri XII from 1556, a masterpiece of mining literature which can also be admired at the Leogang Mining and Gothic Museum.

There was an unprecedented increase in the use of blue in painting too. From as early as the 12th century, what was at first a dark and lacklustre colour was redefined as the symbol of Heaven and the virginity of the Blessed Mother. Glassmakers and illuminators strove to reconcile this new kind of blue with church architects’ altered perception of light adopted from theologians. The radiance of cobalt blue oil paint opened up a completely new set of possibilities in the visual arts.

Today, smalt, or cobalt blue glass powder, is mostly used for restoring old masterpieces.