Rothenburg Museum
The Rothenburg Museum (spelling RothenburgMuseum , until 2019 Reichsstadtmuseum ) is the museum of the history of the city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber . On an exhibition area of approx. 2500 m², it contains approx. 3000 objects from the fields of painting, sculpture, handicrafts, weapons and Judaica . The museum is located in the premises of the former Dominican convent .
History of the collections
In 1871 the Rothenburg Trade Association held readings and recitations in favor of the purchase of an early baroque cupboard. The background to this action was that as early as the 1850s and 1860s, art and cultural assets were sold in Rothenburg, and sometimes they were probably squandered. The local newspaper “Fränkischer Anzeiger” had previously called for “Alterthümer” to be brought to the former meat store on the market square, where they could be sold at a profit to English and American tourists. With the purchase of the cabinet, they wanted to send a counter signal. In addition, in 1898 the Alt-Rothenburg Association decided to set up a collection of cultural and historical goods in the meat shop and to follow the general trend towards the establishment of museums.
So around 1918 the "local museum" was created in the meat shop, where different themed rooms were set up according to the taste of the time. At the same time, the "Lapidar Museum" was created in the Blasius Chapel in the Burggarten as early as 1905.
When the rooms became too small and financial leeway opened up with the Ludwig Siebert Fund, both collections were relocated to the former Dominican convent in the cloister courtyard in 1936. The Frankfurt art historian Albert Rapp was consulted for the inventory. Rapp tried to record everything he found, but he did not know the local conditions and classified some things very broadly.
After the DC circuit of clubs in Nazism and the "unification" of the club and the municipal property it was after the Second World War almost become impossible to divide both property complexes apart again. In 1947, during the American occupation, 41 pewter objects that the Nazis had stolen from Jews and exhibited in the museum were returned.
From 1945 to 1977 the museum was run on a voluntary basis. When a major burglary caused the disappearance of all faiences and glasses in 1974 , a scientific director was appointed. The restoration work that has since become necessary lasted from 1978 to 2006 (with interruptions).
Collection focus
The collection comprises around 30,000 objects with historical items from the time of the imperial city in the city, as well as the collections of the Alt-Rothenburg eV association and the Baumann Foundation.
The collection also includes the estate of the painter Wilhelm Schacht (1872–1951) with over 1200 objects and that of Theodor Alt (1846–1937), a painter from Leibl's circle with 1400 drawings, watercolors and oil paintings. The museum shows sacred devices on permanent loan from the Evangelical Lutheran parish of St. Jakob . The collection also includes objects from the Alt-Rothenburg Association, such as the Creußen tankard (1667) by former mayor Johann Gangolf Schwarz or the Rothenburg sketchbook (1885) by Hans Thoma . In the section for Jewish antiquities, 51 tombstones or tombstone fragments from the Middle Ages are shown, one pogrom stone proclaimed by the rintfleisch pogrom of 1298.
Baumann Foundation
An important new addition is the Baumann Foundation (foundation under public law), which has been an integral part of the RothenburgMuseum since 2000, including important pieces such as a Marie Antoinette hunting ensemble , a double-barreled rifle by Jérôme Bonaparte , a dueling pistol case by Prince Klemens von Metternich and a hunting rifle of Frederick the Great . There is also a prehistoric and early history section and a collection of faiences , models and castles , also belonging to the Baumann Foundation.
Rothenburg Passion
The “Rothenburg Passion” by Martinus Schwarz is considered to be one of the most important exhibits. It is dated to 1494 and comprises 12 almost square panel paintings . It was almost certainly attached to the rood screen stage of the Franziskanerkirche in Rothenburg odT and was removed when the church was converted into a salt store at the beginning of the 19th century and reached the museum via detours. It is of cultural and historical interest insofar as the Passion is one of the few pieces of evidence for a painted rood screen panel. In terms of art history, it is based heavily on the copper engraving passion (1473–1489) by Martin Schongauer and on other early wood cutters and engravers.
building
The museum is located in the city's former Dominican convent, which was founded in 1258 by the imperial master chef Lupold von Nordenberg as a nobility monastery. The monastery kitchen, which - dendrochronologically dated to 1262 - is one of the oldest of its kind in Germany, still dates from this time . The cloister was redesigned in 1497 by the prioress Magdalena vom Rein. She had rebuilt the dormitory in 1482 . The last construction phase before the convent died out in 1554 was the construction of the priory building in the west (1519). Then there are scroll paintings from around 1600 and a lavishly redesigned ballroom (1723–1730), the function of which has not yet been clarified, in the building. In the 18th century the complex served as an agricultural area for a long time, which resulted in serious interventions in the east and west wings. When Rothenburg became Bavarian after 1802, the administration used the east wing to set up a rent office there. This was accompanied by the destruction of the monastery church in 1812/13. The last major interventions took place in 1936 and 1980, when the south cloister was restored.
literature
- A. Fischer: The nunnery in Rothenburg odT guide through the collections. Ed .: Verein Alt-Rothenburg eV, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1939
- Anton Ress: The art monuments of Middle Franconia . Vol. 8. Stadt Rothenburg odT, Munich 1959, pp. 454-524.
- Karl Borchardt: The spiritual institutions in the imperial city of Rothenburg ob der Tauber and the associated rural area from the beginnings to the Reformation . Vol. 1. Neustadt / Aisch, 1988, pp. 151-194. ISBN 978-3-76864122-7
- Hellmuth Möhring, Sigrid Popp: Reichsstadtmuseum Rothenburg. Guide to the collections . Rothenburg ob der Tauber, 2000.
- Hellmuth Möhring: Dominican Convent and Imperial City Museum in Rothenburg odT , in: Frankenland, Issue 3, September 2016, pp. 177–189
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Richard Schmitt: 100 Years of the Alt-Rothenburg Association . In: Verein Alt-Rothenburg eV (Ed.): 1898-1998 Alt-Rothenburg on the 100th anniversary . Alt-Rothenburg Association, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1998, p. 9-42 .
- ↑ Martin Schütz: The Rothenburg Lapidar Museum, a delicious gem . Ed .: Verein Alt-Rothenburg eV Verein Alt-Rothenburg, Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1928.
- ↑ 1000 weapons on 3.3 kilos of paper nordbayern.de, February 15, 2011, accessed on July 3, 2020
- ^ Hilde Merz / Hellmuth Möhring: Wilhelm Schacht 1872-1951 in the Reichsstadtmuseum Rothenburg ob der Tauber . Ed .: Verein Alt-Rothenburg eV Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1992.
- ^ Theodor Köberlin: Theodor Alt: Romantic Rothenburg and its surroundings. Drawings . Rosenheimer Verlagshaus GmbH u. Co., Rosenheim 1981, ISBN 3-475-52335-3 .
- ↑ Hilde Merz: On the history of the medieval Jewish community in Rothenburg ob der Tauber . Ed .: Verein Alt-Rothenburg eV Rothenburg 1993.
- ↑ Hartmut Krohm: The Rothenburg Passion . Ed .: Verein Alt-Rothenburg eV Rothenburg ob der Tauber 1985.
- ↑ Kristine Scherer: Martin Schwarz. A painter in Rothenburg oT around 1500 . scaneg-Verlag, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-89235-047-7 .
Coordinates: 49 ° 22 ′ 42.4 " N , 10 ° 10 ′ 34.5" E