Graphic

Like many historical museums, the Historisches 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 motifs

In contrast to the classic copperplate engraving cabinets, the sheets in the HMF are not primarily filed by artist, but by subject and print medium: The main series include topographical views and plans of the city and its buildings, as well as the surrounding area, historical events (with special sections on the imperial coronations, the Frankfurt trade fair, the 1848 revolution and the First World War) and portraits; the corresponding sheets from the photography collection are also filed here. The approximately 2,000 sheets with views of the city and buildings by Carl Theodor Reiffenstein (1820-1893) are kept separately.

Smaller series contain depictions of Frankfurt's theater and musical life, regional folk life, the Frankfurt military, sports and health care, and the police and fire department. Further thematic focuses are printed matter from the city administration, election and business stationery, advertising media, fashion and traditional costume pictures, devotional pictures, visiting cards and ex-libris, as well as miniatures and initials, printer's marks and other commercial graphic sheets. The collection also includes drawings of the Frankfurt craft guilds. Finally, there are artists' prints, some architects' estates (e.g. Salins de Montfort) and drawings from the estate of the Dombauverein.

The print media

The series of various print media form an important addition to this collection. These include calendars (from 1693), posters (from 1880), postcards, playing cards (from the 16th century), 18th and 19th century illustrated sheets, colored paper and wallpaper. Finally, the Graphic Collection also contains documents such as passports, certificates, diplomas, journeymen's letters, family trees, coats of arms as well as birth, marriage and death announcements.

The Old Books Collection comprises valuable and rare publications from the 16th to the 19th century, which are primarily used for exhibition purposes. These include, for example, the mass relations, the election and coronation diaries, illustrated works by Matthias Merian the Elder such as the Gottfried Chronicle, Frankfurt chronicles, almanacs and calendars, legal texts, works on the history of coinage, guild books, the table volumes of Diderot's Encyclopédie and a collection of around 130 genealogical books. The presentation of these works recorded in the museum database takes place in the Graphic Collection.

Literature

Die Graphische Sammlung des Historischen Museums Frankfurt am Main, by Gerhard Bott, Frankfurt a. M. 1954.

Volker Löbner, Frankfurt Uniforms 1806-1866, Frankfurt 2017