Kaiser Friedrich Museum

The Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum in Görlitz once housed art and applied arts in the rooms of the Oberlausitz Memorial Hall from 1904 to 1945. Its creation followed the 1888 appeal for a memorial hall, and Ludwig Feyerabend was appointed director in 1903. He combined three collections: the Anthropology and Prehistory Society’s holdings, the city’s antiquities and art museum, and the armoury from the town hall. A collecting plan and donations built a rich and varied collection despite limited funds.

On the upper floor the Heimatkunde department displayed thousands of views, maps and pictures of the region, along with a reconstructed shoemaker’s workshop belonging to Jakob Böhme. The paintings gallery focused on Upper Lusatian art after 1800, showing works by Johann Eleazar Zeissig, Christoph Nathe, Franz Gareis and others. Nineteenth-century paintings included pieces by Joseph Anton Koch, Peter von Cornelius, Edward von Steinle, Moritz von Schwind, Anton Graff, Carl Spitzweg, Wilhelm von Lindenschmit the Younger, Wilhelm Trübner and Max Liebermann.

The main floor held applied arts from the region, with wrought-iron work, ceramics, glass, furniture, weapons, jewellery and a collection of finger rings. There were also church, knightly and guild antiquities, folk costumes, a fine choir stalls from the former Franciscan church and a Jakob-Böhme disc. The ground floor added cultural history with furniture from different centuries, guild rooms, a folk museum room and two notable Christmas cribs. A coin cabinet and a prehistory section traced Upper Lusatian culture from about 4000 BC to AD 1000, largely drawn from the Anthropology and Prehistory Society’s finds.