The Germanisches Nationalmuseum is a museum in Nuremberg

Nuremberg

Nuremberg[p] is a city in the German state of Bavaria, in the administrative region of Middle Franconia. Situated on the Pegnitz river and the Rhine–Main–Danube Canal, it is located about north of Munich and is Franconia's largest city. The population is 505,664...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. Founded in 1852, houses a large collection of items relating to German culture and art extending from prehistoric times through to the present day. With current overall holdings of about 1.2 million objects, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum is Germany's largest museum of cultural history.

Formerly the Germanisches Museum, it was founded by a group of individuals led by Franconia

Franconia

Franconia is a region of Germany comprising the northern parts of the modern state of Bavaria, a small part of southern Thuringia, and a region in northeastern Baden-Württemberg called Tauberfranken...

n baron, Hans von und zu Aufsess

Jobst Bernhard von Aufsees

Jobst Bernhard von Aufsees was a Canon of Bamberg and Würzburg, born in Mengersdorf.-Family of Aufseß:...

, whose goal was to assemble a "well-ordered compendium of all available source material for German history, literature and art".

The buildings incorporate the remaining structures of the former Nuremberg Charterhouse

Nuremberg Charterhouse

Nuremberg Charterhouse was a Carthusian monastery, or charterhouse, in Nuremberg in Germany. Its surviving premises are now incorporated into the Germanisches Nationalmuseum.- History :...

, dissolved in 1525 and used for a variety of secular purposes until in 1857 what was left of the premises, by then badly dilapidated, was given to the Museum.

Collection

• Cloth of St Gereon
  Cloth of St Gereon
  The Cloth of St Gereon is a mural tapestry of a repeat pattern with a decorative motif of a bull being attacked by a griffin, a fantastic creature with the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. The Cloth of St Gereon is the oldest known European tapestry still existing, dating to the...
  
  , a fragment they have in their inventory. It happens to be the oldest European tapestry still existing.
• Portrait of Barbara Dürer
  Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents
  Portrait Diptych of Dürer's Parents is the collective name for two small late 15th-century oil-on-oak panels, separated since at least 1588, which probably formed halves of a diptych by the German painter and printmaker Albrecht Dürer. Each shows one of the artist's parents, Albrecht Dürer the...
  
  , part of a portrait diptych
  Diptych
  A diptych di "two" + ptychē "fold") is any object with two flat plates attached at a hinge. Devices of this form were quite popular in the ancient world, wax tablets being coated with wax on inner faces, for recording notes and for measuring time and direction.In Late Antiquity, ivory diptychs with...
  
   by Albrecht Dürer
  Albrecht Dürer
  Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...
  
  
• Lamentation of Christ
  Lamentation of Christ (Dürer, Nuremberg)
  Lamentation of Christ is a oil-on-panel painting attributed to German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer, executed around 1498 and currently housed in the Germanisches Nationalmuseum of Nuremberg, Germany....
  
  , also attributed to Dürer

External links

• Museum website including information in English