Staatliches Museum Schwerin

Staatliches Museum Schwerin stands in Schwerin beside the Staatstheater, with its main building known as the Haupthaus. Opposite Schweriner Schloss, another location extends the museum’s presence into the city. Former residences at Schloss Güstrow and Schloss Ludwigslust also belong to this network of exhibition spaces. Wheelchair access makes the museum easier to explore.

Frederick Francis II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, established the museum in 1882. Medieval art includes the Neustädt Altarpiece, while seventeenth-century Dutch and Flemish paintings feature Jan Brueghel the Elder, Paulus Potter, Frans Hals, and Peter Paul Rubens. Fürstenberg porcelain adds a different material and tradition to the historical collections. Jean Baptiste Oudry and Antoine Pesne represent the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Marcel Duchamp forms a distinctive focus within the museum’s modern holdings. The Duchamp Research Centre has brought artists, academics, and scientists together since 2009. Twentieth- and twenty-first-century art occupies the ground floor alongside changing special exhibitions. Between medieval altarpieces, Dutch Golden Age scenes, porcelain, and Duchamp’s experiments, Schwerin connects several centuries of artistic practice.