St. Anne's Museum Quarter, Lübeck

St. Anne's Museum Quarter (Museumsquartier St. Annen) was previously an Augustinian nunnery, St. Anne's Priory (Sankt Annen Kloster). Since 1915 it has housed St. Anne's Museum, one of Lübeck's museums of art and cultural history containing Germany's largest collection of medieval sculpture and altar pieces, including the famous altars by Hans Memling (formerly at Lübeck Cathedral), Bernt Notke, Hermen Rode, Jacob van Utrecht and Benedikt Dreyer. These are exhibited on the building's first floor is a museum and art exhibition hall located near St. Giles Church and next to the synagogue in the south east of the city of Lübeck, Germany. On the building's second floor is exhibited a large collection of home decor items and interiors of different periods, showing how the area's citizens lived from medieval times up to the 1800s. A modern addition houses special exhibits. The museum is part of the Lübeck World Heritage site.

St. Anne's Priory and the associated church, which was constructed rather quickly due to lack of space, were built 1502–1515 in late Brick Gothic style. The monastery was used mainly for the accommodation of unmarried women who were citizens in Lübeck. Following the suggestion of the Bishop of Lübeck the monastery and the church were dedicated to Saint Anne. A few years later the monastery was closed during the Reformation: the last of the nuns left in 1532. In 1610 a poorhouse was established here. Later, parts of the monastery were used as a prison. For this purpose another wing was built in 1778, the so called Spinnhaus ("spin house"). The care of the poor and the custody of prisoners existed under one roof. In 1843 parts of the monastery and the church were burnt down. During the restoration of the priory building, the church was demolished except for a few fragments that stayed as ruins. Most of the rooms on the ground floor are preserved in their original condition: the cloister, the refectories, the Remter (the largest room of the nunnery, probably the working and day room of the nuns, and from 1733 the refectory of the poorhouse), the chapter house, and the sacristy of the nuns' church. In the south western corner of the cloister is the calefactory.

In 1912 the senate of Lübeck decided to convert the monastery into a museum. This caused changes of the ground plan in order to adapt the floorboards and wainscots of private town houses. The opening of the museum took place in 1915 with some delay due to World War I. From 1920 to 1933, Carl Georg Heise managed the museum. In this era the acquisition of the Behnhaus and the assembly of its collection took place. in 1934 the museums of Lübeck were nationalized. Since 2013 St. Anne's museum and St. Anne's Kunsthalle are merchandized together as St. Anne's Museum Quarter together with a modern combined exhibition.

A special collection of representative cups, goblets, pots, utility objects and derivative pieces give praise to the high technical skills of Lübeck's gold and silversmiths and the wealth of their customers. The date of origin for these objects is generally presumed to be after the reformation, due to Lübeck's mayor Jürgen Wullenwever ordering the melting down of medieval silverware in order to finance the war against Denmark (Count's Feud).

The development of the middle class home decor from the Renaissance to the Classicism can be seen in several rooms, which are partially made of Lübeck's private town houses. In front of the background of contemporary art – amongst others by Godfrey Kneller and Thomas Quellinus, who made the bust of the councilman Thomas Fredenhagen in the baroque high altar of St. Mary's Church —, which reflects the taste of Lübeck's citizens, and the appropriate decor, made of porcelain by Fürstenberg and Meissen, one can well emphasize the depicted era. The greatest influence has a completely conserved baroque floorboard made in 1736. Annexed to this part of the exhibition is a special collection of Faience from Northern Germany in the upper floor, emphasizing the manufactures in Kellinghusen, Stockelsdorf, and Stralsund. Further, a collection of toys sheds light on past time activities of young Hanseatics. But the oldest hobby horse of the museum is within a group of children on the Altar der Gertrudenbrüderschaft der Träger (around 1509), which originates from the circle of Henning von der Heyde.

Surely another area worth noting is the chamber of paraments, which exhibits old liturgical clothes of some of Lübeck's churches and the main part of the parament treasure of St. Mary's Church in Gdańsk.

Among the treasures that are not shown to the public is a collection of photographs. The collection was built up during the 1920s by Carl Georg Heise; included are approx. 450 artistic photos, among them are 212 photos by Albert Renger Patzsch. It is the Collection Showing the History of Photography and the Collection of Ideal Photography. Both collections were not continued after Heise's resignation in 1933 and fell in oblivion for a long time. A few years ago they were brought back into circulation, because the Collection of Ideal Photography is the most comprehensive collection of photographs of the New Objectivity in German (amongst others are works are opus by Renger Patzsch, Hugo Erfurth, Umbo, and Robert Petschow).

Besides the St. Anne's Museum the monastery also contains the St. Anne's Kunsthalle. The architecture of the Kunsthalle, which was built modernly in 2004 and has the ruins of the former church and the monastery that burnt down in 1843, was a gift of the Possehl Foundation. In 2003 the architecture of the Kunsthalle, which was planned by the architects Konermann Siegmund from Hamburg/Lübeck, received the quadrennial star prize of the Bund Deutscher Architekten (Federation of German Architects) of Schleswig Holstein. The Kunsthalle exhibits modern art of the 20th century.

In September 2005, through the medium of Björn Engholm, the Kunsthalle St. Annen received the inimitable collection of Leonie von Rüxleben (1920 – 21 September 2005). This collection is the largest of its type in Germany. This collection enables the Kunsthalle to show approx. 1300 self portraits of modernity in different exhibitions. But recently there appeared a conflict between the heirs of von Rüxleben and the museum's administration concerning the management of the inheritance.

Exil und Moderne (Exile and Modernity): 50 classical exhibits of classical modernity from the collection of the Washington University in St. Louis, 4 September 2005 and 29 January 2006.

St. Anne's Museum Quarter
Exhibits of the St. Annen Museums within the portal of museums in Schleswig Holstein
Exhibits of the St. Annen Museums within the portal of museums in Schleswig Holstein

Sacred Destinations Travel Guide for St. Annen