This article needs additional citations for verification .(March 2017) |
Bayerisches Nationalmuseum | |
Established | 1855 |
---|---|
Location | Prinzregentenstraße 3, 80538 Munich, Germany |
Coordinates | 48°08′35″N11°35′28″E / 48.14306°N 11.59111°E |
Type | Art museum |
Founder | Maximilian II of Bavaria |
Website | www |
The Bavarian National Museum (German: Bayerisches Nationalmuseum) in Munich is one of the most important museums of decorative arts in Europe and one of the largest art museums in Germany.[ citation needed ] Since the beginning the collection has been divided into two main groups: the art historical collection and the folklore collection.
The museum was founded by King Maximilian II of Bavaria in 1855. It houses a large collection of European artifacts from the late antiquity until the early 20th century with particular strengths in the medieval through early modern periods.
The building, erected in the style of historicism by Gabriel von Seidl 1894-1900, is one of the most original and significant museum buildings of its time. It is situated in the Prinzregentenstraße, one of the city's four royal avenues. The house replaced an older building which houses today the Museum Five Continents. Already in 1905/06, the museum was expanded to the north by a few rooms and a workshop wing. German Bestelmeyer added a wing at the southeast corner in 1937.
The main building of the Bavarian National Museum includes on three floors exhibition rooms with in total about 13,000 square meters. The core of the collection dates from the art collection of the Wittelsbach family. This gives the National Museum an importance far beyond the local area. Diversity and breadth of the collections, however, were particularly motivated by the new additions to the subsequent period. To date, the inventory is updated continuously not only through acquisitions, but also by significant foundations and bequests. Support experienced by the National Museum, in particular, by the 1960 launched club "Friends of the Bavarian National Museum".
In 2012, The Bavarian National Museum restituted a bronze statue to the heirs of a Jewish collector named August L. Meyer whose art collection was seized by Nazis before he was murdered in the Holocaust. The museum had acquired the bronze in 1937. [1] Efforts have been made to return some silver objects to the heirs of other Holocaust victims as well. [2] [3] [4]
The National Museum has several branch museums throughout Bavaria. A new building behind the museum houses as addition the Bavarian State Archaeological Collection (Archäologische Staatssammlung) from the first settlement in the Paleolithic Ages through the Celtic civilization and the Roman period right up to the early Middle Ages.
The art collection displays artworks in a tour through more than forty rooms from the hall for late antiquity and Romanesque art via the rooms for Gothic, Renaissance, Baroque and Rococo art to the exhibits of Neoclassicism and Art Nouveau. The western side wing of the museum houses The Bollert Collection with late medieval sculptures.
The museum is especially noted for its collections of carved ivory, goldsmith works, textiles, glass painting, tapestries and shrines. The displayed sculptures were created by noted sculptors including Erasmus Grasser, Tilman Riemenschneider, Hans Multscher, Hans Leinberger, Adam Krafft, Giovanni Bologna, Hubert Gerhard, Adriaen de Vries, Massimiliano Soldani Benzi, Johann Baptist Straub, Ferdinand Tietz , Ignaz Günther, Matthias Steinl, and Ludwig Schwanthaler. The museum is famous for its collections of courtly culture, musical instruments, furniture, oil paintings, sketches, clocks, stoneware, majolica, miniatures, porcelain and faience, and its statues. It has probably the world's best collection of the Nymphenburg porcelain figures of Franz Anton Bustelli (1723–63).
The Romanesque period is represented by stone sculptures from the monastery of Wessobrunn and the marble lions from Reichenhall. Important pieces of Romanesque art include wooden figures of crucifixion groups from Bamberg, Schongau and Kaufbeuren, and several works of metal and ivory. The Kasten der Heiligen Kunigunde (jewelry box of Holy Cunegonde), is a unique masterpiece made in the year 1000 in Scandinavia of wood, bronze and narwhal tusk. Reliefs from the Magdeburg Ivories, plaques probably from an antependium of Emperor Otto I and a relief of the West Roman imperial court with one of the oldest representations of the Ascension among the most famous works in the ivory collection. Key works of ivory art, important stained glass windows, and not least excellent testimonies of textile are found in the Gothic department. On display are also historic Gothic chamber ensembles such as the magnificently painted Zunftstube of Augsburg weavers, one of the finest Gothic cabinets at all. The Bavarian National Museum displays one of the largest and most important collections of late medieval sculpture from the German-speaking countries. Special attractions are the great knight's hall with the ceremonial armor of the 15th and 16th Century and the true to scale wooden Renaissance models of the Bavarian ducal capitals.
The portrait art of the Renaissance is represented by medals, miniatures, paintings and full plastic sculptures. Many items come from the art chamber of the Wittelsbach family. From the possession of the Wittelsbach the Bavarian National Museum also presents unique Baroque objects from all areas of craft and artistic production, such as ostentatious furniture, jewelry, weapons, musical instruments, watches, glasses, miniatures, ivories and bronzes. Of importance are especially Florentine bronzes from the collection of the Medici and pastel paintings from Venice including works of Rosalba Carriera. The Bavarian National Museum has the most important collection of the Bavarian Rococo sculpture. A rich collection of architectural models and designs for frescoes and altarpieces documents the new buildings and conversions of churches in the competition of the various monasteries and convents. A unique court ensembles are the silverware of the Prince-Bishop of Hildesheim and the service and figurative centrepieces of Nymphenburg and Meissen porcelain manufacturers. Rare furnitures testify to the high rank of the most famous German cabinetmaker manufactories of the 18th Century.
The collection of Neo-classical art of the 19th Century is also strongly influenced by works that once belonged to the Wittelsbach family. Thus, from the estate of Maximilian's father King Ludwig I are magnificent presents of Napoleon Bonaparte which arrived at the Museum, a result of the strong connection between France and Bavaria. Of special importance is for example a splendid table with precious wood with a rich porcelain decor, a gift Napoleon gave in 1806 to the Crown Prince Ludwig. The Art Nouveau Department shows, for example, the floral art direction, an expression of Art Nouveau inspired by the plants and animals, first developed in France. The collection of fine glass and porcelain and ceramics includes many objects of high artistic and technical quality of the most important centers of this epoch in Europe and the United States. The museum displays a major collection of Art Nouveau objects, including the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany, René Lalique, Émile Gallé and several Bavarian artists.
Many of the museum's treasures are displayed in antique rooms moved to the museum. For example, the armor is in one of several rooms featuring gothic ribbed vaulting form medieval buildings, magnificent renaissance furnishings are displayed in rooms roofed with decorative wood-beamed and mullioned ceilings form the 14th and 15th centuries, and the baroque objects in rooms with 16th century wood paneling and decorative ceilings.
The folklore collection houses for example traditional Bavarian furnitures, rural pottery, crockery and religious folklore including an outstanding collection of Neapolitan, Sicilian, Tyrolian and Bavarian wood carvings including street scenes and Nativity Scenes.
The museum holds an extensive collection of Nativity scene from the fifteenth through early nineteenth centuries, dramatically and imaginatively displayed. Many of the scenes display wonderful craftsmanship and detailed workmanship, some are worked in precious materials, others show exotic elements, like a Flight into Egypt intended to astonish 18th century viewers with the monkeys, crocodiles and hippopotamuses Mary and Joseph encounter on the Nile.
The Victoria and Albert Museum in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
The Wallace Collection is a museum in London occupying Hertford House in Manchester Square, the former townhouse of the Seymour family, Marquesses of Hertford. It is named after Sir Richard Wallace, who built the extensive collection, along with the Marquesses of Hertford, in the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection features fine and decorative arts from the 15th to the 19th centuries with important holdings of French 18th-century paintings, furniture, arms and armour, porcelain and Old Master paintings arranged into 25 galleries. It is open to the public and entry is free.
Tilman Riemenschneider was a German woodcarver and sculptor active in Würzburg from 1483. He was one of the most prolific and versatile sculptors of the transition period between the Late Gothic, to which he essentially belonged, and Northern Renaissance art, a master in limewood and stone. He was also a local politician in the council of Würzburg.
Walters Art Museum is a public art museum located in the Mount Vernon section of Baltimore, Maryland. Founded and opened in 1934, it holds collections from the mid-19th century that were amassed substantially by major American art and sculpture collectors, including William Thompson Walters and his son Henry Walters. William Walters began collecting when he moved to Paris as a nominal Confederate loyalist at the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, and Henry Walters refined the collection and made arrangements for the construction what ultimately was Walters Art Museum.
Polychrome is the "practice of decorating architectural elements, sculpture, etc., in a variety of colors." The term is used to refer to certain styles of architecture, pottery, or sculpture in multiple colors.
Schatzkammer, a German word which means "treasury" or "treasure chamber", is a term sometimes used in English for the collection of treasures, especially objets d’art in precious metals and jewels, of a ruler or other collector which are kept in a secure room and often found in the basement of a palace or castle. It also often included the wider types of object typical of the Renaissance cabinet of curiosities. A very small but evocative Renaissance room in a tower at Lacock Abbey was designed for keeping and viewing the treasures of the newly rich owner.
The Germanisches Nationalmuseum is a museum in Nuremberg, Germany. Founded in 1852, it houses a large collection of items relating to German culture and art extending from prehistoric times through to the present day. The museum is Germany's largest museum of cultural history. Out of its total holding of some 1.3 million objects, approximately 25,000 are exhibited.
The Residenz in central Munich is the former royal palace of the Wittelsbach monarchs of Bavaria. The Residenz is the largest city palace in Germany and is today open to visitors for its architecture, room decorations, and displays from the former royal collections.
The Birmingham Museum of Art is a museum in Birmingham, Alabama. Its collection includes more than 24,000 paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings, and decorative arts representing various cultures, including Asian, European, American, African, Pre-Columbian, and Native American. The museum is also home to some Renaissance and Baroque paintings, sculptures,and decorative arts from the late 13th century to c. 1750.
Trausnitz Castle is a medieval castle situated in Landshut, Bavaria in Germany.
The Museum Five Continents or Five Continents Museum, located in Munich, Germany, is a museum for non-European artworks and objects of cultural value. Its name until 9 September 2014 was Bavarian State Museum of Ethnology.
The Bode Museum, formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of German Emperor William II according to plans by Ernst von Ihne in Baroque Revival style. The building's front square featured a memorial to German Emperor Frederick III, which was destroyed by the East German authorities. Currently, the Bode-Museum is home to the Skulpturensammlung, the Museum für Byzantinische Kunst and the Münzkabinett. As part of the Museum Island complex, the Bode-Museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 because of its outstanding architecture and testimony to the development of museums as a cultural phenomenon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The Mimara Museum is an art museum in the city of Zagreb, Croatia. It is situated on Roosevelt Square, housing the collection by Wiltrud and Ante Topić Mimara.
The Nymphenburg Porcelain Manufactory is located at the Nördliches Schloßrondell in one of the Cavalier Houses in front of the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, Germany, and since its establishment in 1747 has produced porcelain of high quality. It is one of the last porcelain producers in the world where every single part is made entirely by hand.
The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design is an art museum integrated with the Rhode Island School of Design, in Providence, Rhode Island, US. The museum was co-founded with the school in 1877. It is the 20th-largest art museum in the United States, and has seven curatorial departments.
The Bavarian State Painting Collections, based in Munich, Germany, oversees artwork held by the Free State of Bavaria. It was established in 1799 as Centralgemäldegaleriedirektion. Artwork includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, video art and installation art. Pieces are on display in numerous galleries and museums throughout Bavaria.
The Art & History Museum is a public museum of antiquities and ethnographic and decorative arts located at the Parc du Cinquantenaire/Jubelpark in Brussels, Belgium. The museum is one of the constituent parts of the Royal Museums of Art and History (RMAH) and is one of the largest art museums in Europe. It was formerly called the Cinquantenaire Museum until 2018. It is served by the metro stations Schuman and Merode on lines 1 and 5.
The Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg is a museum of fine, applied and decorative arts in Hamburg, Germany. It is located centrally, near the Hauptbahnhof.
The Museum für Angewandte Kunst Köln is a decorative arts museum in Cologne. The collections include jewellery, porcelain, furniture, weaponry and architectural exhibits. Until 1987 it was called the Kunstgewerbemuseum.
The Kurpfälzisches Museum is a museum of art and archaeology in Heidelberg, Germany. It is located in the Palais Morass. It was founded in the late 1870s, when the city of Heidelberg purchased the private collection of the artist and art historian Charles de Graimberg.