Susanne: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe visited Wiesbaden as a spa guest and noticed that the city had no public museum collection. In a conversation with his acquaintance, Baron Johann Isaac von Gerning, he suggested that the baron’s collection be made accessible to the public. The baron had inherited his father’s remarkable collection, famous for its natural history specimens—including specimens that the scientist and artist Marian Sibylla Merian had brought back from her travels in Suriname. Ultimately, Gerning bequeathed the collection to the State of Nassau in exchange for a life annuity—and thus began the history of our museum as we know it today.

The Goethe monument in front of the museum commemorates this important initiative. The sculptor Hermann Hahn had the mythological father of the gods, Zeus, in mind when he created the monument. That is the origin of the eagle. The sculpture is thus also intended to symbolize intellectual strength and cultural enlightenment. 

Susanne: The Wiesbaden Museum is one of the three Hessian State Museums. What makes our museum special is that it combines art and nature in a presentation that is unique in Germany. Spanning an area of 7,000 square meters, the exhibits in both categories range from natural history objects to contemporary art.

Among the highlights of the art collections are the world’s most significant collection of works by Alexej von Jawlensky and the internationally renowned Art Nouveau bequest of F. W. Neess. Both fields are united in the permanent exhibition “Aesthetics of Nature,” a favorite among visitors. A life-size polar bear, a cheetah in full stride—with more than 6,000 natural history specimens, the exhibition showcases the diverse forms and vibrant colors of biodiversity.

Susanne: The permanent exhibition “The Aesthetics of Nature,” with its five themed rooms: Change, Color, Form, Movement, and Time! There, natural phenomena are explained, and masterfully crafted animal specimens and models, as well as dioramas, invite visitors on a journey to the most diverse regions of the world. My favorite is the starfish display case in the “Form” room. You can see starfish of all sizes—large and small, colorful and spiny. The display cases on camouflage in the “Color” room are also popular. They invite you to find all the animals in the diorama, just like in a hidden-object game.

Susanne: In the art collections, nine centuries of art engage in a dialogue with one another. They span from the 12th century to the present and are divided into the sections Old Masters, Art Nouveau, Classical Modernism, and Modern and Contemporary Art. Anyone visiting the Old Masters galleries should definitely see Carl Spitzweg’s “The Butterfly Catcher” or Anselm Feuerbach’s “Nanna.” In the Art Nouveau collection, I always make a detour to see Alfons Mucha’s bust “La Nature”—it’s the “face” of the collection.

No visit to the Classical Modernism galleries is complete without viewing the paintings by the Russian Expressionist Alexej von Jawlensky. In the Modern and Contemporary Art section, the artist-dedicated rooms are a highlight. Here, entire exhibition rooms are dedicated to artists such as Rebecca Horn, Katharina Grosse, and Angela Glajcar. Right in the entrance area is a special highlight: I love to lose myself in the optical illusion of Horn’s installation “Jupiter in the Octagon,” located directly beneath the entrance dome.

Susanne: At the heart of our art collection is the world’s most significant collection of works by the Russian Expressionist Alexej von Jawlensky, comprising more than a hundred pieces. He was a member of the “Blue Rider” artists’ group and spent the last 20 years of his life here in Wiesbaden. He had close ties to the museum as early as the beginning of the 20th century, and many of his paintings entered the collection through the Wiesbaden-based Kirchhoff Collection, as well as through acquisitions and donations. The so-called “Mona Lisa” of our exhibition spaces is *The Lady with a Fan (opens in a new tab)*. His expressive use of color and striking contours clearly demonstrate how Jawlensky was part of the avant-garde of his time and paved the way for modernism.

Susanne: The Art Nouveau Collection Donated by Ferdinand Wolfgang Neess opened in 2019. It is an extraordinary total work of art combining Art Nouveau and Symbolism, which the private collector Ferdinand Wolfgang Neess built up over decades and entrusted to the museum during his lifetime. More than 570 objects—ranging from paintings, lamps, and seating to vases—bring the spirit of the fin de siècle to life in a unique way at the Museum Wiesbaden. With a focus on France, the U.S., Austria, and Germany, visitors can discover top-tier works by the movement’s leading figures—Hector Guimard, Louis Majorelle, Fernand Khnopff, Henry van de Velde, Alfons Mucha, Émile Gallé, Franz von Stuck, and Louis Comfort Tiffany. Thanks to this donation, Wiesbaden has become a premier destination for Art Nouveau and is a must-see for design enthusiasts.