The Lithuanian Art Museum was initially established in Vilnius in 1933 as the Vilnius City Museum. It houses Lithuania's largest art collection. The collections at the museum include about 2,500 paintings dated from the 16th to the 19th Century; these consist mostly of portraits of nobility and clergy of the Lithuanian Grand Duchy from the 16th to the 18th centuries, and religious works from Lithuanian churches and cloisters. Over 8,000 drawings by Italian, German, French, Flemish, Dutch, Polish, English, and Japanese artists from the 15th to the 20th century are represented.
The first half of the 20th century has an extensive presence, with over 12,000 works. The collection from the second half of the 20th century features more than 21,000 exhibits. Sculpture collections span the 14th through 20th centuries, with works from a number of European countries. Other notable collections include works done in watercolor and pastel, and photography.
References:The Pilgrimage Church of Wies (Wieskirche) is an oval rococo church, designed in the late 1740s by Dominikus Zimmermann. It is located in the foothills of the Alps in the municipality of Steingaden.
The sanctuary of Wies is a pilgrimage church extraordinarily well-preserved in the beautiful setting of an Alpine valley, and is a perfect masterpiece of Rococo art and creative genius, as well as an exceptional testimony to a civilization that has disappeared.
The hamlet of Wies, in 1738, is said to have been the setting of a miracle in which tears were seen on a simple wooden figure of Christ mounted on a column that was no longer venerated by the Premonstratensian monks of the Abbey. A wooden chapel constructed in the fields housed the miraculous statue for some time. However, pilgrims from Germany, Austria, Bohemia, and even Italy became so numerous that the Abbot of the Premonstratensians of Steingaden decided to construct a splendid sanctuary.