Holdings

Glasmuseum Hentrich affords a comprehensive panorama of the history of fine glassmaking. almost every era of this art is represented here, with eminent works of superlative quality. Beyond these, the Hentrich Glass Museum also tends a number of areas of special interest – areas of the collection which are particularly well-stocked.

Behind the feature areas in the Glasmuseum Hentrich collection In almost every case, are the names of excellent private collections which the Museum has been able to purchase or which it has had the fortune to receive as gifts.

The Classical era
Glass of the Roman age, mostly from Near-Eastern workshops.

Islam
The Near East, from the Late Classical period (the Sassanid Dynasty) to circa 1400.

The Middle Ages
The collection of utility and luxury glass of the Middle Ages, from the Merovingian period to the Renaissance, is among the best in the world.

Renaissance to nineteenth century
Masterpieces of European glass-making – the Venetian Renaissance; Baroque cut glass and ruby-red glass in Central Europe, e.g. with pieces by Hans Wolfgang Schmidt, Johann Schaper, Friedrich Winter, Gottfried Spiller and Georg Ernst Kunckel; the Biedermeier era (broadly first half of nineteenth century, Germany) with works by, e.g., Johann Josef Mildner, Samuel Mohn, Anton Kothgasser and Dominik Biemann; Historicism, represented by names such as Vincenzo Moretti, Giuseppe Barovier or C.H.F. Müller in Hamburg, the Rheinische Glashütten AG glassworks in Cologne and J&L Lobmeyr in Vienna.

Jugendstil/Art Nouveau
Art Nouveau/Jugendstil, from the 1880s until c. 1904, is the Glasmuseum Hentrich’s area of greatest specialisation, with works of the French Art Nouveau makers, of whom Emile Gallé at Nancy was the most prominent; also Daum Frères at Nancy, François Eugène Rousseau in Paris; and Burgun, Schverer & Co. at Meisenthal. The collection has large holdings of pieces by Louis Comfort Tiffany of New York, and Johann Lötz Witwe in Bohemia. Further names represented include Meyr’s Neffe, Karl Koepping, Peter Behrens, Poschinger, Theresienthal, Fritz Heckert and the Josephinenhütte works.

1920–1960
A highly reputed stock of Art Deco glasses, by Maurice Marinot; the ascent of art glass-making from the 1920s on in Murano, the Netherlands and Scandinavia, especially Sweden and Finland.

Studio Glass
Untrammelled artistic approaches to glass, very comprehensive stock numbering some 600 works. Special features are works by Erwin Eisch; by artists in former Czechoslovakia, now the Czech and Slovak republics, e.g. Ji?í Harcuba, René Roubí?ek, Václav Cigler, Ivan Mareš, Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová; and the Dutch, Andries Dirk Copier, Floris Meydam, Willem Heesen, Mieke Groot and others.

Glass design
Items illustrating European glass design since the Second World War. Production and archives of the Wiesenthalhütte works at Schwäbisch Gmünd. Pioneering products from the Dutch glassworks at Leerdam. German mouth-blowing workshops such as Süssmuth, Gralglas, Rosenthal and WMF with Wilhelm Wagenfeld’s designs. A comprehensive archive of artists and companies.