Collection
The collections at a glance
The museum's collections are very diverse and form the core of the museum's work.
Objects made of ceramics, glass and metal stand as products of arts and crafts in the context of bourgeois life. Their forms from the early modern period to the end of the 19th century demonstrate the stylistic, artistic and social changes of their time. The collection includes not only Kunstkammer objects such as the exhibits from the Barckhausen family's Kunstkammerschrank, but also copies of the imperial insignia and the old and new council silver of the city of Frankfurt am Main.
The "Everyday Culture and Household II" collection is a cross-sectional collection dedicated to objects of everyday use.
The collection at the museum underwent a major expansion, particularly in the 1970s and 1980s. These years were characterized in cultural and historical studies by the discussion of a new historiography that increasingly took everyday life into account. In this way, everyday culture was also able to establish itself as an independent category at the museum. The collection is dedicated to the everyday, cultural and social history of Frankfurt with a focus on the period from the 1930s to the 1980s.
Two focal points can be identified within the collection: With the help of the Kober donation, Eva Stille's plastic collection of over 600 objects was acquired in 2009. These objects illustrate how artificial materials found their way into everyday life. Secondly, the non-ferrous metal collection builds on the extensive collection of tableware and drinking vessels from earlier centuries. A key criterion for inclusion in the collection is the history associated with the object.
The "Photography" collection comprises around 290,000 photographic works from the early beginnings of the history of photography in Frankfurt to the present day. Almost all photographic processes and techniques are represented, from the daguerreotype to black-and-white and color prints to digital printing, from glass negatives to digital photo files.
The collection includes individual works, series and photo albums by professional photographers and photo studios, but also by amateur and amateur photographers - more than 600 names in total. High-quality artist prints stand alongside documentary photographs and private photos. The development of the collection not only shows the stages in the history of photography, but also the development of media history up to the 21st century. Since the museum was founded in 1878, photographs have been integrated into the Graphic Arts Collection on an equal footing with drawings and prints and serve to document the history and image of the city. The new medium, created in 1839, proved to be an excellent means of capturing the accelerating processes of change in the city's topography and historical events since the mid-19th century.
Frankfurt has been an important trading city since the Middle Ages. Frankfurt merchants lived and worked here early on, weighing, measuring and calculating. And they built up a picture of Europe and the world, as they needed to know where their trading partners were located and where the goods came from. These developments are documented in the "Objects of Science and Research" collection.
The collection does not originate from a princely chamber of art and curiosities, as is the case in royal residences. In contrast, 27 measuring instruments and their custom-made cases were already listed and archived in the city library in 1691. In the trade fair city, it was necessary to have the current length, weight and hollow measurements available at all times. The instruments in the collection therefore include apothecary, spring and gold scales, standardized weights made of brass and iron, wooden cubits and folding rules as well as brass and pewter hollow measures.
The Historical Museum's precious astronomical instruments include globes, sundials, astrolabes, equatorials, planetariums, world models, telescopes, instruments for determining locations and important clocks made in Frankfurt.
Senator Friedrich Gwinner founded Frankfurt's art historiography with his work "Kunst und Künstler in Frankfurt am Main vom dreizehnten Jahrhundert bis zur Eröffnung des Städel'schen Kunstinstituts", published in 1862. This was also a prerequisite for the inclusion of the city's art holdings in a broad-based cultural-historical presentation of the Historical Museum, which opened its doors to visitors for the first time in 1878.
The museum's art collections include paintings, sculptures and stained glass as well as an extensive graphic art collection. The basis of the painting collection, which comprises around 3,200 works, is formed by the donations of Prince Primate Carl von Dalberg (1744-1817) to the museum society (1808), the heirs of the master confectioner Johann Valentin Prehn (1749-1821) and the merchant Johann Georg Christian Daems (1774-1856) to the City of Frankfurt (1839 and 1845 respectively).
Dalberg had acquired the paintings from the secularized Frankfurt churches and monasteries, including works by Albrecht Dürer, Mathias Grünewald, Hans Baldung Grien, Hans Holbein the Elder and the Frankfurt Master. At the same time, Dalberg also acquired works by contemporary Frankfurt artists. Prehn's Cabinet of Paintings, a unique example of a bourgeois art collection, brings together over 800 miniature paintings in 32 folding boxes - including the famous "Garden of Paradise" by an Upper Rhine master, created around 1410/20 (on permanent loan to the Städel) - and over 30 large-format paintings, mainly by German and Dutch artists of the 17th and 18th centuries. The more than 200 paintings in the Daems Collection are also mainly by German - especially Frankfurt - and Dutch artists of the 18th and 19th centuries, with a focus on landscape painting.
Like many historical museums, the Historical Museum Frankfurt has had a graphic collection since its foundation, with a thematic focus on the history and topography of Frankfurt. The collection comprises around 76,000 hand drawings, prints, maps, postcards, posters and much more.
Several private collections, which came to the museum via the city library in the founding years, form the basis of the Graphic Art Collection. This was the case, for example, with the Frankofurtensien collection of the merchant Johann Christian Gerning (1744-1802) and the portrait collection of the senator Henrich Wilhelm Lehnemann (1723-1802).
The Historical Museum Frankfurt laid the foundations for its Höchst porcelain collection back in the 19th century. Through targeted acquisitions, private donations and with the help of its sponsoring association, the Historisch-Archäologische Gesellschaft e.V., the museum has built up an extensive systematic collection of Höchst faience and porcelain. The most significant addition to the municipal porcelain collection was made in 1910, when the Historical Museum Frankfurt acquired 86 important Höchst porcelain groups from the estate of the late Mainz banker Oppenheim.
In 1931, the porcelain collections of the city of Frankfurt am Main underwent a radical change, as Adolf Feulner, who was also director of the Historical Museum Frankfurt and the Frankfurt Museum of Decorative Arts, united the porcelain holdings of both museums, had them reorganized and sold some Höchst porcelain and Damme earthenware figurines from the old holdings. Unfortunately, not only duplicates but also a few unique pieces ended up on the art market. The porcelain collection survived the Second World War almost unscathed. Since the 1950s, further pieces have been acquired, donated or bequeathed. Special thanks are due to the donation from Kurt Bechtold in 1997 and the donation from Sanofi Aventis Deutschland GmbH in 2009, which made the HMF collection the most extensive and important of its kind.
But it was not only in Frankfurt, but also in Höchst, that people were always aware of the old porcelain tradition. In 1894, the "Verein für Geschichte und Altertumskunde Frankfurt-Höchst" (Association for History and Antiquities Frankfurt-Höchst) planned its own porcelain museum and put together a porcelain collection, which will also be on display in the Kronberger Haus in the future. In 1927, the city of Höchst ordered a complete, newly molded set of all surviving Höchst models from the "Dressel, Kister & Cie" porcelain factory in Passau. The 350 or so "Althöchster reproductions" are still on display today in the festively decorated rooms of the Bolongaro Palace and are scientifically supervised by the Historical Museum Frankfurt.
The collection comprises several sub-collections from the field of the history of technology, which focus on the new development of media and communication since the middle of the 19th century in the broadest sense, as well as a collection of written material (S-Inventar), which was added to this collection context. The spectrum of objects from the history of technology in the collection covers three areas: Advertising media, optical media and analog recording and playback devices. The collection of advertising media includes company signs for Frankfurt stores, product advertising signs and illuminated advertising media, such as the illuminated tower silhouette of the demolished Turmpalast cinema.
The optical media department contains precursors of photography and film development. In 1971, the internationally acclaimed collection of more than 500 mostly hand-painted Laterna Magica pictures by the Viennese projection artist Paul Hofmann from the second half of the 19th century was acquired and presented in a major exhibition and collection catalog in 1981.
Frankfurt is a city with virtually no significant military traditions. Here, more and more emphasis was placed on peace and prosperity through trade. The collection of weapons, which, along with uniforms and medals and decorations, makes up the Militaria collection, is therefore largely the result of the private passion of a wealthy collector.
The 400 or so weapons in the Historical Museum date from the 12th to 20th centuries. A few of them came from the municipal arsenal, where Frankfurt's cannons and mortars were kept. They were operated by gunners, called "Konstabler" in Frankfurt. Their most important activity was firing firecrackers with these cannons at imperial coronations and major festivals.
Most of the collection is divided into two periods: On the one hand, these are the older weapons from the 13th to 18th centuries. There are a few swords, spurs and stirrups from the Middle Ages. There is a fairly large selection of edged weapons such as sabres, swords, rapiers, halberds and partisans from the later period. There is also a smaller number of crossbows, maces, judges' swords, pistols and rifles. Bridles, spurs, stirrups and horseshoes also belong to the cavalry. The museum's collection includes iron helmets, chain mail and parts of five suits of armor as protective clothing for the combatants.
The weapons of the "Free City of Frankfurt" (1815-1866), which were used almost exclusively for ceremonial purposes, form a completely different collection.
From the very beginning, the Historical Museum also collected costumes and traditional costumes, headgear and shoes, as well as fashion accessories as evidence of the changing spirit of the times. Costumes and accessories primarily illustrated developments in the history of style and type, while the traditional costumes were intended to document rural customs that were threatened with extinction. Today, the Historical Museum Frankfurt collects clothing and accessories primarily as sources for social and everyday history, which deals with aspects as diverse as fashion as a system of signs and as a means of social representation. The significance of clothing for shaping the body and the moral values conveyed by clothing are research questions that are the focus of work with the collection.
The Fashion and Textile Collection, with over 16,000 objects, focuses on bourgeois women's and men's clothing from the second half of the 18th to the early 19th century and women's clothing from the 1850s to the 1930s, as well as numerous examples of everyday and leisure clothing after 1945.
The jewelry collection comprises over 700 individual pieces from the 17th to the 20th century and thus forms another important element of fashion history. In addition to precious metal jewelry in the form of necklaces, brooches, rings, earrings and pocket watches owned by wealthy Frankfurt citizens, the collection also includes costume jewelry made of various plastics from the early 1920s onwards. Another important area is jewelry for traditional costumes and religious occasions.
Furniture as a central component of the home can be found in almost all museum collections with a cultural-historical focus. As the material 'thing culture' of everyday life in Frankfurt, the collection of the Historical Museum describes and explains the living arrangements and lifestyles of Frankfurt's middle-class families. It demonstrates a wide-ranging, diverse spectrum of living, representational and working furniture from the 17th century to modern design objects.
A special feature of the HMF is the large number of Baroque cabinets, which entered European furniture history as so-called Frankfurt cabinets. The collective term is applied to various cabinet types (column cabinet, pilaster cabinet, wave cabinet, nose cabinet, studded cabinet), the development of which is attributed to the Frankfurt cabinetmakers' guild.
Within the more recent history of furniture, the "Frankfurt kitchen" is certainly another special feature of the metropolis on the Main. The Austrian architect Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky developed this forerunner of today's fitted kitchen, which was intended to enable new ways of rationalizing housework against the backdrop of women's increasing employment. From 1925, the standardized kitchen was an integral part of the "New Frankfurt" housing estates planned by Ernst May.
The basis of the collection dates back to the founding period of the Historical Museum and the 1880s of the 19th century with the acquisition of the instruments of the municipal band music of the 16th and 17th centuries, the instruments of the piper court and those of the Frankfurt citizen military from the time of the Free City (1816-1866).
Until the Second World War, acquisitions focused on Frankfurt instrument making from the early 19th century, especially grand pianos and upright pianos. Lutes, mandolins and guitars from the 17th and 18th centuries came from Germany and England. It is assumed that these objects were used in Frankfurt's domestic music and so the aim of maintaining a collection representative of Frankfurt's musical history is only occasionally interrupted.
The Historical Museum's coin collection is unique in Germany. Greek and Roman, medieval and modern, medals and banknotes provide an overview of the development of our money up to the euro.
It all began in 1749, the year Goethe was born. His widow Elisabeth Katharina von Barckhaus bequeathed 3,296 Greek and Roman coins to the city. Today, this collection has grown to more than 150,000 objects through acquisitions and donations. The Frankfurt department contains almost all the coins and banknotes minted in Frankfurt. They range from the introduction of the pfennig in Frankfurt by Charlemagne to the introduction of the euro. There is also a large collection of medals on Frankfurt events and Frankfurt people. The medals particularly focus on the minting of the Frankfurt imperial coronations and the commemorative pieces for Johann Wolfgang Goethe. A large number of dies illustrate the production process of Frankfurt coins and medals.
The important coin collection contains coins from all the minting states in Germany.
As early as 1869, the city council had decided to transfer the "collection of tools and carvings from local monasteries and churches", "the medieval sandstone sculptures" and "the stained glass and wood carvings" from the collections of the city library to the Historical Museum. This collection was later supplemented by purchases or donations of sacred and secular works. Added to this were architectural sculptures from houses demolished or destroyed in the Second World War from the Middle Ages to the 19th century, finds from archaeological excavations in the city and the surrounding area and sculptures donated by the cathedral building office.
In the first decades of its existence, the Historical Museum Frankfurt also pursued regional arts and crafts collecting interests and therefore acquired sculptures of non-Frankfurt provenance, such as two attributed female saints. Finally, the HMF naturally collects portrait busts of Frankfurt personalities from public buildings, private collections or tombs.
The material play worlds of children and young people of the 19th and 20th centuries provide information about the playful appropriation of the world at different times. The collection was mainly created through generous donations from Frankfurt citizens and reveals social preferences. The collection also includes objects that served as entertainment for adults.
The doll's houses of (upper) middle-class families form a prominent section. The doll's house of the Gontard family from around 1800 and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's doll's theater (on permanent loan to the Goethe House) are among the collection's treasures. The historical board games from the 17th and 18th centuries also impress with their variety of materials and craftsmanship and are an important part of Frankfurt's cultural history.
In addition to their function as educational toys or as tools for practising gender roles, the pieces also represent the respective social eras. Objects such as stores, building and construction sets, (technical) models, miniature vehicles, model railroads, children's vehicles, playhouses and toy animals, dolls, doll's houses and kitchens, parlour games, tin and wooden toys and optical toys tell of the emerging mechanization of society as well as the differentiation of socio-cultural life. Most of the objects come from middle-class and rather affluent households. Some of the objects are neither mass-produced nor industrially manufactured: the individual pieces, made according to individual ideas, convey contemporary aesthetic concepts.
The Historical Museum of the 1920s and 1930s saw itself as a Frankfurt museum of local history with a focus on arts and crafts and a resolute stance against the modern metropolis. It was not until the end of the 1970s that the Historical Museum began to build up its current collections on modernism in the 19th and 20th centuries. The "Technology" collection was established at the same time. One focus is on products from Frankfurt companies of supra-regional and global importance (Torpedo, Mayfarth, Deutsche Nähmaschinenfabrik, Voigt & Haeffner, Lahmeyer, Prometheus, Moenus, Wittekind & Pokorny, Max Braun).
In 1997, the Hartmann & Braun collection of instruments dating back to the 19th century was acquired. This world-leading company manufactured measuring and control technology devices in Frankfurt-Bockenheim from 1884 to 1997. It developed the spring galvanometer, the first usable electrical operating measuring instrument. From 1930, the company made the transition from measurement to control technology. The field of automation technology was added in 1949. A highlight of the collection is a large switchboard with Art Nouveau elements, which was in operation from 1898 to 1927.
A look back at March 2020: the first wave of the pandemic comes to Europe and also to Frankfurt. In the museum blog, we are calling for objects and stories to be submitted, initially digitally. At the same time, we are expanding the Stadtlabor digital with the Corona category. Images, videos, audio or texts can be uploaded directly here. The question was: How do we want to remember it later as an urban society?
The Historical Museum is asking people to collect together in order to remember the time of the coronavirus crisis in Frankfurt in the future. How will we remember the coronavirus pandemic in Frankfurt? What (was) important to us in Frankfurt in this situation? In order to record this time in the city's history, the Historical Museum is asking everyone to collect together: Images, texts, audios, videos, photos, objects and stories.
Now the 2023 pandemic is over, we are continuing to collect personal memories and insights into everyday life. As a Frankfurt Museum, we will only accept submissions that relate directly to the city. Submissions that have no connection to Frankfurt will be referred to the nationwide Corona Archive.
How does the collection work?
You can send us your contributions in two ways:
Via e-mail: Pictures that describe everyday life during the pandemic or tell us about things that have helped you through everyday life can be sent to the museum by email. Please also tell us why this is or was so important to you. We will then contact you (please be patient). We will then decide together which objects will actually be included in the museum collection. Please note: we have already received a large number of masks. However, we are still missing objects from people and areas that have been particularly busy over the two years, such as people working in the medical field...
The curators Dorothee Linnemann and Nina Gorgus look forward to receiving your e-mail.
Via Stadtlabor Digital: Users can also tell their experiences and share their pictures in "Stadtlabor Digital". There is already a "corona" category on the site. Self-produced audio, video, image and text contributions are uploaded to the Frankfurt map and shared with the community. The result is a growing, collaborative collection of Frankfurt knowledge that makes it possible to experience how people are dealing with the current situation.
To take part, please create an account on the Historical Museum website under Login. You can then log in and get started straight away. We have created the new category "Corona" for the contributions. In the final step, your contributions will be activated by museum staff and will then appear online.
If you have any questions about Stadtlabor Digital, please contact Franziska Mucha
Thank you very much for your willingness to share and document your everyday life during the Corona pandemic in Frankfurt!
A full vacuum cleaner bag, movie tickets, a pizza box, ... - does this belong in a museum? Yes, because these objects tell stories of everyday life.
The work "Von Jedem Eins" (One of each) by Frankfurt artist Karsten Bott comprises 1,507 objects of everyday culture. He sorts them thematically on a wall-filling shelf with 45 compartments. Since October 2021, the artwork has not only been on display in the HMF's permanent exhibition, but can also be explored in a new media station and online from home. Here we invite users to tell their own stories about the objects and share photos or memories.
Get involved! (in German)
Seven objects from Frankfurt's city history are retold from personal and transcultural perspectives. The stories can be listened to and, with the completion of the new exhibition building, can also be viewed on site.
Refugee academics and students from Goethe University Frankfurt accepted an invitation from the museum to tell their unusual stories about historical museum objects. In a four-month project, objects from the museum's collection were selected and viewed in a new light. The participants put their own professional and personal interests at the center of their observations. With sensitive narratives, the authors question traditional historical traditions and address their own personal perspectives and insights.
Project management: Puneh Henning, Historical Museum
Cooperation partner: academic experience Worldwide e.V., Research Center for Historical Humanities, Goethe University, study group "collecting, organizing, representing"
Supported by: Aventis Foundation "eXperimente"
The collections were presented in the CURA 2021 magazine.
At the Historical Museum Frankfurt, 6 conservators from various specialist areas are dedicated to this demanding task. They are responsible for the preservation of over 600,000 individual objects made from different materials and using various techniques.