Museum Abtei Liesborn

The Museum Abtei Liesborn sits in the old barrack-style residence of a 17th-century Benedictine abbey in the village of Liesborn, deep in the Münsterland countryside. The building itself is a fine example of Westphalian Baroque architecture, its whitewashed walls and tall windows facing a quiet square. Inside, the museum occupies every room of the former abbey, spreading across 3,000 square metres of galleries and corridors. The museum is one of the most important in the Münsterland and the largest in Warendorf district, drawing about 20,000 visitors each year. It holds the celebrated Liesborn Evangelary, a medieval manuscript returned in 2023 after a long absence. Under Elisabeth Schwarm the displays were reorganised and the building won two regional architecture prizes in the mid-2000s. Today Sebastian Steinbach leads the institution, continuing the tradition of showing art from the Middle Ages to the present day. Visitors find a permanent display of more than 850 crucifixes, the biggest collection of its kind in Europe. Medieval stone carvings and Renaissance goldsmith work share space with Dutch 17th-century paintings and modern works by artists such as Dalí, Chagall and Beuys. There are also textiles, furniture, folk objects and a room dedicated to the local writer Augustin Wibbelt. Outside the main building, chamber concerts and craft days bring the abbey’s history to life each season.