Staatliches Museum Schwerin

The Schwerin collection started with two purchases by the state from the former Grand Dukes of Mecklenburg, in 1920 and 1930. At the heart of its most prized holdings, about 650 Dutch and Flemish paintings, are the acquisitions of Duke Christian Ludwig (1683-1756), featuring numerous masters including Carel Fabritius, Frans van Mieris the Elder, Hendrick ter Brugghen, Nicolaes Berchem, and Jan van Huysum. These were only part of the duke’s superb collection, which also comprised a wide range of (largely Meissen) chinaware, objects fashioned in precious metals, ebony carvings, and paintings by contemporary German, French and Netherlandish artists. There are a handful of pieces in Dutch faience and a single sculpture from the Netherlands, made by Jan Claudius de Cock in 1715. Prints were at no time collected systematically and most of the numerous Rembrandt and Ostade prints are eighteenth-century impressions. The several hundred Dutch and Flemish drawings have not yet been subjected to in-depth research, but they include treasures by Jacob Matham, Gerrit van Honthorst, Govaert Flinck, and Gerard de Lairesse. Scarcely any additions have been made to the Old Master collections in the twentieth or twenty-first centuries, since all acquisition efforts have been directed toward contemporary art.

Gero Seelig, curator (February 2026)