Last Thursday, 30 October 2025, the museum in Schwerin reopened after a thorough renovation that included a partial reconstruction of the ground floor, which now shows some rooms with the reconstruction of their 1882 decoration. The major part of the building works was funded by the Dorit & Alexander Otto Stiftung, a private foundation, which has also guaranteed the museum to keep the entrance free of charge for the next four years. The reopening was celebrated with the presentation of a new catalogue dedicated to Dutch landscape painting.

First Floor Galleries

The first-floor galleries, which chiefly house old master paintings, remain mostly unaltered aside from the addition of a badly needed new lighting system. This new arrangement displays the permanent collection and will be reconfigured periodically. In addition to the signature Dutch and Flemish paintings, which include the Christoph Müller collection, the museum currently shows part of its holdings of German sixteenth-century art, with several paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder as well as some sculpture. Furthermore, there is a small presentation on women artists. In a notable arrangement, Jean-Baptiste Oudry’s menagerie, including the life-size rhinoceros Clara, is now confronted with the large animals by Maerten de Vos, which were painted in 1572 for Schwerin. The series of ten panels was originally inserted into the walls of a room in the castle. Only six are extant today, and Schwerin holds and shows four of them: an elephant, a camel, a leopard, and a unicorn (the last of which is on loan to the Barberini Museum until February 2026).

In celebration of the Schwerin reopening the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam has graciously lent three Rembrandt paintings that are on show until March 2026: Self Portrait as St. Paul, Denial of St. Peter and Landscape with a Stone Bridge.

Ground Floor

The ground floor of the museum has undergone substantial changes. It shows art of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as well as contemporary works. The museum’s collections of GDR-era works and Marcel Duchamp’s art (acquired in 1997) are noteworthy. The Duchamp collection recently grew with the addition of a drawing linked to his friend, Henri-Pierre Roché.

Catalogue and Vacancy

In celebration of the reopening, the Schwerin museum published Landschaften im Licht. Die niederländischen Landschaftsgemälde in Schwerin (Landscapes in Light. Dutch Landscape Paintings in Schwerin). Featuring texts by Gero Seelig and Isaäc Vogelsang, the volume offers more than just an insight into Schwerin’s significant collection of Dutch landscape painting. It illuminates historical contexts, establishes connections, and yields new findings.

The catalogue includes works by Jan Asselyn, Ludolf Backhuysen, Nicolaes Berchem, Gerrit Berckheyde, Jan Both, Johannes Glauber, Jan van Gool, Jan van Goyen, Jan van der Heyden, Isaac de Moucheron, Cornelis van Poelenburch, Jan Porcellis, Frans Post, Paulus Potter, Hermann Saftleven, Adriaen van de Velde, and Simon de Vlieger

A vacancy for a Curator of Old Master Paintings and Sculptures at the Staatliches Museum Schwerin will be announced shortly, as Gero Seelig is set to retire in spring 2026.