State Museum Schwerin

Do you also have a hobby? Which one? Duke Christian Ludwig II certainly had a soft spot for paintings. In the 17th century he brought them back home from his numerous travels at a national and international level. Although a museum was still a long way off at that time, these origins are significant. Today, the collections of the Staatliches Museum Schwerin comprise more than 100.000 works of art.

Christian Ludwig did not collect just anything! It had to be of special quality. He was very fond of old and new masters, which is why in 1725 he already had 120 extraordinary works by Dutch artists in his possession. At that time, the Duke was still living in Grabow Castle. When a devastating fire broke out here, most of the works of art were destroyed.
The enthusiastic art collector was not deterred by this. „Ok, I simply start again from scratch.“ After all, he had set his mind on putting together a significant collection of paintings for Mecklenburg. In 1736, he moved to Schwerin Castle and had a first gallery built on the grounds. The year of construction of the two-storey half-timbered building is today considered the founding year of the Schwerin art collections.
In 1792, the collection of paintings had already grown to 695 pictures, for the Duke inherited his passion for art and his son Friedrich and his nephews also collected on a grand scale. A special enrichment of the ducal collection were 43 paintings by the French court and hunting painter Jean-Baptiste Oudry. 34 of them are still preserved today. It is the world's largest collection of the animal painter.

What lasts a long time finally becomes... a Museum

It was to take almost another 100 years. Grand Duke Friedrich Franz structured the abundance of art treasures with the help of the first gallery director Friedrich Christoph Georg Lenthe. The idea of presenting the works of art to the public arose at precisely this time – but failed due to lack of funds.
In 1837 Schwerin became a royal residence and a center of attraction for cultural life. The ducal gallery in the half-timbered house was to find a new home through alterations to the palace. Two houses in Alexandrinenstraße became the new home of the art collection – and in December 1845 its doors opened to the public. The exhibits changed. The director of the ducal art collection, Eduard Prosch, took a keen interest in archaeology and exchanged valuable collection items. This is how he eventually ended up with more than 300 different plaster casts of ancient statues.

The Museum building trumped with the most modern construction knowledge and comprehensive architectural work

At that time, there were already plans for a museum building at the Old Garden. Duke Paul Friedrich had commissioned them from Georg Adolph Demmler. However, they did not make it to realization, as Paul Friedrich died young – at only 42 years of age. So for 40 years the plans lay dormant, then Paul Friedrich's wife got involved in the museum building and took the funds from the reparation payments from the war she had won against France.
As it was said, so was it build. The architect was Hermann Willebrand - and he had done a great job: According to the latest state of knowledge, he not only took the representative character of the museum into account, but also considered burglary and fire safety, heating, ventilation as well as lighting appropriate to the situation and the exhibits in the exhibition building. He was thus a pioneer for many buildings that were henceforth built less with form in mind and more with function in mind.

From the Grand Ducal Museum to the National Museum

In 1918, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV had to abdicate in the course of the November Revolution. The art collection became the property of the state - thus the Grand Ducal Museum became a state museum. The art treasures were redistributed: The Museum am Alten Garten now displayed the paintings as well as the graphic collections and the so-called „Mecklenburg Antiquities“. Arts and crafts and the coin cabinet were housed in Schwerin Castle. There, the Palace Museum was established in the former private rooms of the ducal family. From then on, the Old Garden, the palace, the palace museum and the state theatre formed an impressive cultural centre in Germany.

Changes due to World War II

National Socialism brought with it the loss of many important works that were classified as „degenerate art“. In 1943, a uniform factory was set up in the gallery, thus initially putting an end to museum work.
When the gallery reopened in 1945, personnel restructuring followed, but the art collection also underwent a change: special exhibitions became established, many important works did not initially return from their places of removal, but new departments were created. „Medieval Sculpture and Painting in Mecklenburg“, for example, is one of them. The state Museum Schwerin became renowned at the latest in 1961 when some of the works that had been removed from storage found their way back, including works by Frans Hals and Carel Fabritius.

The-State-Museum Schwerin today

An additional new building complements the original building. In addition to changing special exhibitions, the visitor experiences art treasures of international standing from antiquity to the present. The precious collection of Dutch and Flemish works from the collections of Christian Ludwig II can be seen as well as paintings by Jean-Baptiste Oudry or baroque works of art made of ivory. In addition, the art-interested eye catches a glimpse of modern works of Impressionism or gets to know figurative painting as it was established in the GDR era.
The Marcel Duchamp collection is certainly unique – it encompasses almost all phases and aspects of the artist. Since 2013, the museum has also housed works by the Mecklenburg artist Günter Uecker.

About the Style
Herrmann Willebrand interpreted the desire for a „Greek Renaissance“ as a requirement for clarity and concreteness. He had a shortened main storey rise from a two-storey base. It is fronted by a columned hall facing the old square and a basement facing the courtyard. An open staircase leads into an open hall whose entablature is supported by six Ionic columns. A second entrance on the ground floor leads into the museum through a covered driveway. Willebrand envisaged the soaring upper storey for the ducal collection of paintings. The two-storey basement was reserved for the three-dimensional objects of the Historical, Archaeological and Medieval Collections.