Ancient Art

When it comes to high-quality presentation of the period from the Middle Ages to the 18th century, the museum can provide just a few individual attractive pieces of art, most of them owned by the Federal Government. However, during the last few years, the 19th century art collection has clearly developed to become a second highlight of the art collection, thanks to acquisitions, donations and permanent loans. Apart from numerous portraits - among them an outstanding large-scale group painting of Silesian aristocracy by portraitist Ernst Resch - the landscape paintings created by Adolph Dressler and his student Gertrud Staats show the beginning of a Silesian school of landscape painting in the second half of the 19th century. Thanks to a generous permanent loan out of the former collection of Albrecht Haselbach (1892 - 1979), who was the owner of the Namslau brewery. there is a comprehensive collection of graphic prints from the Biedermeier era. This selection, comprising some 900 prints, is a unique historical documentation showing people’s daily life and the beginning of tourism in Silesia around 1800. In the picture catalogue of the Marburg Herder-Institute, the Haselbach collection is virtually merged with parts of the collection Kunstforum Ostdeutsche Galerie Regensburg and is researchable online: www.herder-institut.de/bildkatalog/.