|
none
Wolfsthurn Castle, Museum of Hunting and Fishing
| | |
Since 1996 Wolfsthurn Castle has been the seat of the Hunting and Fishing Museum of South Tyrol. The mighty, baroque castle, towering on a hill above the village of Mareit, has certainly much more to offer than just interesting objects for hunters and fishers.
The museum focuses on hunting and fishing not so much from the point of view of natural history, but rather from a cultural and historical perspective. For this reason local popular art also plays an important role in the exhibition, beyond the due space devoted to local wild animals. Some stuffed representatives of the local fauna can be admired in special dioramas.
Visitors can admire hunting tools such as powder horns, hunting bags and various sets of cutlery. The collection also includes other objects such as snuff boxes, pipes, and drinking glasses. Most of these objects are nicely decorated with popular art motives.
Beyond learning about the history of fishing in South Tyrol, visitors can explore dioramas (glass showcases) with different kinds of local fresh-water fish. The "Rudolf Reichel" collection - which includes several valuable reels, rods and lures - completes the exhibition on this floor.
The second floor is entirely dedicated to the history of the castle itself.
There are allegedly 365 windows in the castle. During the baroque period people liked to combine certain numbers, like the number of days in a year for example, with the planning of architectural features.
The palatial rooms have been preserved in their original status. Visitors can thus get a good idea of how the local nobility used to live during the 18th and 19th century. All the furniture, paintings, family portraits and wall decorations of this exhibition area are part of the castle's original interior setting.
Wandering through the magnificently furnished rooms, visitors can admire: an artistic ceiling with stucco works in pastel colours; furniture dating back to different periods; the castle's dance hall with its impressively high ceiling and attached crystal chandelier; the large living room with a hand-painted Rokoko oven and Biedermeier portraits; two "Jagdzimmer" (hunting rooms) artistically decorated with fine wall carpets that feature hunting scenes involving the local nobility.
 |
|
|
|
|
