Städtisches Museum Wesel

Description

Today, the Wesel Municipal Museum preserves an important collection of late medieval and early modern panel painting by Lower Rhine and Cologne masters and silver from Wesel. In the 1960s, the museum´s collection was extended to include parts of the well-known art collection of Kasimir Hagen from Cologne, which comprised works from the Middle Ages to the 20th century.

From the 1970s onwards, further focus was placed on the acquisition of works by 19th and 20th century artists from the Lower Rhine.

In total, the collection comprises around 6,000 works from almost all artistic genres. Highlights of the collection include works by artists such as Derick and Jan Baegert, Joos van Cleve, Bartholomäus Bruyn the Elder, Gilles Sibricht, Ernst Bosch and Wilhelm Schreuer, Otto Pankok, Anton Räderscheidt, Fritz Levedag, Eva Brinkman and August Oppenberg.

Hardly any of the museum´s once extensive art and cultural-historical collection remained in Wesel after the devastating Allied attacks in the spring of 1945. Not only was the collection destroyed in these attacks, but also the museum´s location, the former Herzogenschloss on Kornmarkt. In the mid-1970s, a new cultural centre was built on the same site, which today houses the municipal museum alongside the municipal library and the municipal theatre.