German
DEUTSCHES SPIELZEUGMUSEUM
How to find us:
- Street
- Beethovenstraße 10
- Zip, City
- 96515 Sonneberg
- Country
- Germany
- Phone
- +49 (0)3675 42 26 34 - 0
- Fax
- +49 (0)3675 42 26 34 - 26
- Web
- https://www.spielzeugmuseum-sonneberg.de/
- info@spielzeugmuseum-sonneberg.de
Description
In Sonneberg in Thuringia is the German Toy Museum, founded in 1901 and housed since 1938 in a building of the Meininger Oberland, which was originally constructed in 1901 for the Industrial and Trade School.
The focus of the collection has changed since the museum’s foundation: whereas toys were initially only one of several collecting areas, the holdings now comprise around 100,000 objects, of which approximately 60,000 are toys from around the world. Significant exhibits include Thuringian porcelain dolls of the 19th century, early Käthe Kruse dolls, a wide range of wooden toys from various regions, as well as toy finds from ancient Egypt and antique toys from Greece and Rome. The collection is complemented by historic automata with moving figures. The antiquities collection was acquired between 1938 and 1944.
Among the outstanding showpieces are the groups “Thüringer Kirmes” and “Gulliver in Liliput.” The “Thüringer Kirmes” was a contribution by Sonneberg toy makers to the 1910 World’s Fair in Brussels; occupying 72 m² and set against the backdrop of a Thuringian–Franconian small town, 67 lifelike figures depict the activity on a fairground around 1900. It was produced by numerous Sonneberg manufacturers and was awarded a Grand Prix at the World’s Fair. “Gulliver in Liliput” was made in 1843/44 in several copies as a painted group of figures from bread dough, depicted the episode in Liliput and was shown in Berlin in 1844 and in London in 1851; after one example was destroyed at an exhibition in 1956 the group was restored, and the museum today owns two examples.
In recent years the building has been comprehensively renewed both structurally and conceptually. A first construction phase (2012–2014) added an extension to the main building in which, among other items, the “Thüringer Kirmes” was housed. The second construction phase provided for the renovation of the main building and the integration of a former commercial school into the museum complex. During the work the museum remained open; the second phase was inaugurated in autumn 2022, and further measures form part of the ongoing master plan.
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