Inhalt

Art of the 17th to 19th Century

For centuries Biberach has produced numerous artists who attest the evolvement of the town as a smaller artistic center alongside Ulm, Memmingen, and Augsburg since the Early Modern Age. Besides late Gothic statues and panels from the Probst Collection, the focus of the collection »Art of the 17th to 19th Century« is on the Baroque Period and Realism.

One of the most significant artists from Biberach is Johann Melchior Dinglinger. The so-called »Goldsmith of the German Baroque« created world-famous pieces of jewelry at King August the Strong’s court in Dresden. A jeweled flower basket in the Museum Biberach’s presentation exemplifies his artistry. The paintings by Johann Heinrich Schönfeld are key works of the South German Baroque. The collection also represents other Baroque, Rococo, and Biedermeier artists, such as Johann Heiss, Joseph Esperlin, Johann Zick, and Johann Friedrich Dieterich.

Despite its distance from the art centers and academies, the town developed an independent art scene with the genre painter Johann Baptist Pflug and the so-called »Biberach School« in the 19th century. Karl Martini, Eberhard Emminger, and Hermann Volz are some the Pflug students represented in the permanent display.

The art collection was founded on the estates of Anton Braith and Christian Mali, both leading animal painters of the Munich School. Their original showrooms were translocated from Munich to Biberach. These rare examples of still largely intact 19th-century art salons are the collection’s main exhibits.

The collection of late 19th-century art is dominated by trends in Realism and Impressionism as well as innovative techniques such as lithography. One of the most important lithographers of the region was the Biberach artist Eberhard Emminger, who made a name for himself with detailed landscape representations. The Museum Biberach also provides insights into colonial history with the Biberach merchant Gustav Schutz’s Africa collection.

Regional female artists, such as Maria Freudenreich and Anna Peters, who managed to become professional artists in their lifetime, also play a special role in the collection.