Our discoveries

This vestibule grandfather clock was acquired in 1934 and has since been held by the Museum of Applied Art (known at the time as the Museum of Decorative Arts).

This little bronze work of art is hanging inconspicuously in the vitrine. Anyone who has delved into the world of medieval art will nod knowingly as they read the description. To anyone else, the name shown there won’t mean much: Reiner von Huy.

“Imperial Diet of Roman Emperor Maximilian in Cologne in the year MDV at the Danzhuis Gürzenich”. The header inscription may be legible, but anything after that is almost impossible to read.

It was the largest cohesive architectural complex north of the Alps during the Middle Ages: Twelve distinguished city gates, 52 towers, and a 6-kilometre city wall on the land side, constructed between 1180 and 1250, in addition to barbicans and bastions that were added in the following centuries in response to advancements in military technology.

Don Quixote, reading in an armchair is the name of Adolf Schrödter’s painting from 1834.

The watercolour Hat shop on the promenade was made in 1914, during the peak of the Blauer Reiter movement. Its melancholic tone, broken composition, and wide range of colours make it a textbook example of August Macke’s output from this period.

The bombardment of Cologne during World War II uncovered a little known chapter of history in the area surrounding the City Hall: the medieval Jewish Quarter.

When photographer Hugo Erfurth shot a portrait of Johanna Ey in Düsseldorf in 1930, she was 66 years old – and the “most-painted woman in Germany”.

People in Europe aren’t the only ones excited for spring: Springtime celebrations are a very important aspect of everyday culture in Japan. The Plum Park in Kameido has been depicted by many Japanese artists, most prominently in a series by Utagawa Hiroshige in 1857. Vincent van Gogh popularised the motif in Europe by copying Hiroshige’s woodcut.

Karneval in Cologne has many faces – literally. In fact, the faces play the most important role. Karneval is not all about costumes and masks, but rather is at its most beautiful when people paint their faces.

The three main events in the life of the founder of Buddhism, Buddha Shakyamuni – his birth, enlightenment, and death – are very important to Buddhists.

White lines glow against a black backdrop, branching off and joining together. Structures swirl together at the bottom of the image. What appears at first glance to look like an abstract painting is actually the portrait of a bearded man. Is it a piece of modern art?