Paintings and Sculpture Collection
Topics - Paintings and Sculptures
- View of the City Hall's picture gallery, around 1905.
The approximately 4,000 paintings and 1,500 sculptures of the Municipal Art Collections range from the 12th century to the present day and may be subdivided into various fields.
City Hall Gallery
Paintings and sculptures which adorned the official rooms in the old Nuremberg City Halls for decades, sometimes even centuries, are today grouped under the heading "City Hall Gallery". The basic stock of the City's Art Collection comprises "test pieces" which had to be submitted by any artist who wanted to be granted the permission to work in Nuremberg, paintings gifted to the Free Imperial City by visitors, paintings the City of the Empire purchased to furnish its official rooms, and copies of highly esteemed masterpieces commissioned by the City for its offices, as well as numerous donations and legacies by Nuremberg Patricians to their home town.
- Paul Ritter: The Corridor in Nuremberg City Hall with its Picture Gallery, 1888, private collection.
This includes works by Hans Baldung Grien, Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, Albrecht Dürer, Roelant Savery, Christian Wilhelm Ernst Dietrich and the valuable glass paintings from the historic City Halls. But mention must also be made of the famous Nuremberg Council Silverware with works by Peter Flötner, and the sculptures adorning the city hall with works by Peter Vischer the Elder and Christoph Jamnitzer and the famous group of sculptures of the Judgement Scene by Hans Schwarz.
This collection has been added to until the present day. Each Lord Mayor is portrayed by a renowned artist for the City Hall Gallery (recently Lord Mayor Dr. Peter Schönlein by Manfred Hürlimann, and Lord Mayor Ludwig Scholz by Michael Cleff III).
- Karl Schmitt-Rottluff: Still Life, undated, oil on canvas, Gm 1890.
- View of the Municipal Gallery.
Municipal Gallery
Between 1884 and 1889, the City of Nuremberg had a new city hall built on Theresienstraße. The offices in the new city hall were lavishly furnished with paintings and sculptures, including pieces loaned by the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, some returned pieces from the municipal collections which had been loaned elsewhere, and some new acquisitions.
Between 1890 and 1908, the City could again record a significant increase in paintings and sculptures in its collections. This was mainly due to donations and gifts. Since housing the collection in the city council offices posed increasing problems, after 1910, a large part of the collection was on display in the "Artists' House". But by 1920, this space proved to be too small again, and the collection had to be divided up. Works by Nuremberg and Franconian artists were taken out of the stocks of the Municipal Art Collection. The remaining paintings were then exhibited in the Artists' House under the heading "Municipal Gallery".
In the 1920s, the then Lord Mayor, Dr. Hermann Luppe, again increased the City's collecting activities, purchasing paintings and sculptures by artists who were fashionable in those days, also including works by international artists, but mainly works by German artists. The highlights of this collection included works by Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Hans Purrmann, Wilhelm Trübner and Otto Dix. The collection was finalised in 1968.