Landesmuseum Hannover
The Lower Saxon State Museum Hanover is the state museum of Lower Saxony in Hanover, Germany. Situated adjacent to the New Town Hall, the museum comprises the state gallery, featuring paintings and sculptures from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, and departments of archaeology, natural history and ethnology. The museum includes a vivarium with fish, amphibians, reptiles and arthropods.
History
Originally the Museum of Art and Science inaugurated in 1856 in the presence of George V of Hanover based in the present-day Hanover Arthouse, it was later renamed Museum of the Province of Hanover, or simply Provincial Museum. The museum soon ran out of space for its art collections, prompting the construction of the current building, designed by Hubert Stier in a Neo-Renaissance style, on the edge of the Maschpark in 1902. The building's relief frieze, titled "Key Moments in the Evolution of Humanity", was created by the Hanoverian artist Georg Herting in partnership with Karl Gundelach and Georg Küsthardt. It was renamed the State Museum in 1933, and finally the Lower Saxon State Museum of Hanover in 1950.The museum building suffered extensive damage from aerial bombings of Hanover during World War II. During the air raid on Hanover on the night beginning 8 October 1943, the cupola above the central risalit was destroyed and the second floor burnt out. However, most of the museum contents had been evacuated by then and were spared destruction. After the war ended in 1945, the museum reopened with an exhibition in the orangery of the Herrenhausen Gardens, and starting in 1947 with small exhibitions in smaller museum buildings. While renovations of the main museum building continued into the 1960s, permanent exhibitions began to reopen between 1950 and 1956.
Extensive renovations and modernisations were carried out in the interior from 1995 to 2000, reopening on 13 May 2000 as part of Expo 2000.
Collections
State gallery
The state gallery features art from the 11th to the 20th centuries. The collection includes German and Italian works from the Renaissance and the Baroque, 17th-century Flemish and Dutch paintings, Danish paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries, and a print room featuring old German masters, Dutch drawings, 19th-century print works, and drawings by German impressionists. Some of the best-known artists include Rembrandt, Rubens and Albrecht Dürer.The gallery's other strengths include German and French Impressionist paintings, works by Max Liebermann, Lovis Corinth and Max Slevogt, and major works from members of the Künstlerkolonie Worpswede group, such as Bernhard Hoetger, Fritz Overbeck, Otto Modersohn and Paula Modersohn-Becker. Caspar David Friedrich's four-piece Tageszeitenzyklus is the only complete such series by Friedrich in a single museum.