Museum für Völkerkunde Dresden, Japanisches Palais

Description

As a component of the Staatlichen Ethnographischen Sammlungen Sachsen, the Museum für Völkerkunde in Dresden presents an extensive collection of ethnographic and anthropological objects. It belongs to the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden and uses exhibition space in the Japanischen Palais; storage and operational areas are located, among other places, in the Adolf-Bernhard-Meyer-Bau in Dresden-Klotzsche. The museum displays rotating exhibitions from its own holdings as well as guest presentations.

The collections trace back to the Kunstkammer of the Elector of Saxony, founded in 1560; princely collecting continued in the 16th and 17th centuries and experienced a significant increase in non-European objects under the ruler August des Starken. As early as the 18th century, art and natural science holdings were separated spatially and parts transferred to the Zwinger. At the end of the 19th century, in the course of the differentiation between natural and human sciences, a distinct ethnographic department emerged within the natural history context, concentrating mainly on material evidence from non-European regions and promoting collecting activities, for example in the Indonesian–Oceanic area.

In the early 20th century the museum’s collection work was professionalized through specialist appointments and a close linking of collection, research and teaching; collecting activities expanded into the 1930s. During the Second World War many holdings could be relocated and thus preserved; nevertheless, individual large-format objects and parts of the historical picture collection were lost. After 1945 the returned holdings were reorganized, the anthropological collections consolidated, and further collection development continued primarily through private acquisitions and state purchases. In 1954 the museum moved into the Japanischen Palais; in the following years regional research and study collections were purposefully expanded.

Since 1990 scientific collecting expeditions have supplemented the holdings, including to Brazil, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Tunisia. In 1999 a modern storage and functional building (Adolf-Bernhard-Meyer-Bau) was created for the collections. In 2004 the museums in Dresden, Leipzig and Herrnhut were united as the Staatlichen Ethnographischen Sammlungen Sachsen. Today the collections comprise around 300,000 objects and about 200,000 visual documents from Oceania, Africa, the Americas, Asia, Australia and Europe.

Since September 2022 the “Dresdner Damaskuszimmer” with Ottoman wood panelling from 1810/11 has been accessible; the panels originate from a townhouse in Damascus, were brought to Europe at the end of the 19th century, transferred to the museum in 1930 and, after a prolonged period in storage, restored. The wood panels display floral and figural motifs as well as gilded Arabic inscriptions of a poem.