The Antikenmuseum introduces itself.
The Antikenmuseum (Museum of Antiquities) at Leipzig University displays painted vases, marble sculptures, terracotta figures and clay reliefs, bronze statuettes and utensils, clay lamps and glass from Greco-Roman antiquity in its teaching and study collection in the Alte Nikolaischule, which is open to the public.
The museum was founded in 1840, making it one of the oldest and most important collections of Greek and Roman antiquities at German universities. Alongside the sculptures of the Dresden State Art Collection, it is now Saxony's only museum that provides comprehensive information on Greek and Roman antiquity.
The Museum of Antiquities has a collection of almost 10,000 original objects of ancient art and sculpture from the countries of the Mediterranean and neighbouring regions. The collection of over 800 plaster casts of Greek and Roman marble and bronze works from all the world's major museums of antiquities is accessible for the public since March 2024. Changing exhibitions in the window gallery of the Classical Archaeology Department at Ritterstr. 14 also provide a small insight into these collections.
Visitors have access to a wide range of exhibitions and educational programmes. In addition to special exhibitions and educational programmes for children, school classes and adults, this also includes publications on individual items or larger areas of the collection, regular lectures and events. The Museum of Antiquities is also involved in university teaching and research as part of various co-operations.
1735 to 1836
When Johann Friedrich Christ (d. 1756) founded archaeological teaching at the University of Leipzig in 1735 with his lecture ‘antiquitates Romanas interpretabor’, he did not want the training to be limited to theoretical treatises. In order to give the students a direct, practical look at ancient monuments, he presented them with coins, gems and other antiquities from his own collection. Just like the university, not all of the scholars after Christ had a collection of antiquities, so they had to make do mainly with illustrations of antiquities in copperplate engravings. As the subject grew, the inclusion of casts and original antiquities became increasingly indispensable in student education. After an ‘Antiquarian Society’ was formed at the university in 1834, the ministry decided to create opportunities for this by establishing a teaching collection.
1836 to 1846
Once the necessary funds had been made available, Wilhelm Adolf Becker (1796-1846) was able to start building up a teaching collection in 1836. The first plaster casts and Greek vases arrived in Leipzig in 1840. They formed the basis of the Museum of Antiquities and found a permanent, albeit provisional, home in the former convict hall of the Mittelpaulinum. Three years later, the move to the Fridericianum on Schillerstraße, built by the architect Adolf Geutebrück, brought spatial improvements. Over the course of time, rooms from neighbouring properties were added, creating a museum that could already be described as prestigious, and a description of the archaeological collection from 1859 gives us a good idea of its furnishings. Although conceived as a teaching collection, the Museum of Antiquities was open to the public from the year it was founded and thus began to function as a public institution beyond the university circle.
1847 to 1853
The first phase of building up the collection was completed with the archaeologist and musicologist Otto Jahn (1813-1869), who acquired Etruscan antiquities, the first figurative terracottas, ancient bronze implements and archaeologically important casts, thus creating the basis for a solid, constantly expanding teaching collection.
1853 to 1895
In the second half of the 19th century, Johannes Overbeck (1826-1895) devoted himself primarily to expanding his collection of casts in line with his bourgeois educational awareness. Their scientific significance as perfect documentation of Greek and Roman sculpture was so important to him that he completely dispensed with the acquisition of originals. Dense rows of casts from all genres and periods of antiquity were intended to provide a historical overview of all phases of the development of style and form and at the same time give an impression of the work of individual sculptors and their schools. His legacy is the creation of a monumental teaching and display collection which, in the judgement of his contemporaries, was one of the best in Germany in terms of its selection. The rapid influx of casts soon made the space for the antiquities in the Fridericianum too small. In 1881, they found a new home in the Old Augusteum, built by Schinkel and Geutebrück, in several large exhibition rooms organised according to the history of art.
1896 to 1929
The Antikenmuseum owes its most lasting influence to Franz Studniczka (1860-1929). Like his predecessor, he continued to expand the well-established cast collection. He used the casts particularly intensively in teaching and research and showed them to an interested and enthusiastic Leipzig audience in the so-called ‘Sunday lectures’. From the turn of the century, Studniczka increasingly acquired antique originals again. New acquisitions and significant donations from domestic and foreign patrons allowed the museum to grow into one of the most important university collections in Germany within just a few decades. At the beginning of his term of office, Studniczka completed the relocation of the archaeological facilities to the magnificent historicist conversion and extension of the university complex on Augustusplatz by Arwed Roßbach. Housed here in a central location, the museum experienced its greatest heyday with several spacious exhibition rooms as well as depots and workshops.
1929 to 1945
Herbert Koch (1880-1962) and Bernhard Schweitzer (1892-1966) continued the great tradition of the Antikenmuseum as a tested instrument for teaching and research. In the workshop that had already been set up under Studniczka specifically to supplement ancient sculptures on casts, probably the most famous Leipzig plaster, the reconstruction of the so-called Pasquino Group, was created. Around 1935, Schweitzer set up the ‘Roman Hall’ in the museum, in which two precious mummy portraits were exhibited alongside marble works and copies of ancient murals. The latter, together with other originals that had not been removed in time and most of the cast collection, fell victim to the bombing of Leipzig in December 1943.
1945 to 1968
After 1945, the original artefacts were returned and over 600 plaster casts were recovered from the rubble of the burnt-out exhibition rooms. As part of the reorganisation of the archaeological facilities, the museum was reopened in 1955 in the ‘Hellenistic Hall’, which was the only room to have survived the war largely unscathed. Even though it was only able to fullfill its original purpose as a teaching and study collection within the modest possibilities available at the time, it was thus restored.
1968 to 1990
The socialist university policy directed against the ‘bourgeois educational subjects’ and the senseless, politically motivated demolition of the university complex on Augustusplatz in 1968 led to the liquidation of the teaching programme and the destruction of the Antikenmuseum as a study collection and museum institution. The unique original works of Greek and Roman art and the historically valuable casts were banished to depots, where they led a shadowy existence for decades after the restoration workshop was abandoned without any significant conservation care. All efforts by the custodians to revitalise the antiquities museum and give the two collections a new home failed. The work on the collections and temporary special exhibitions, which continued despite many obstacles and restrictions, kept the scientific and public awareness of the magnificent collection alive.
1990 til today
Only after the political changes of 1989/90 and the subsequent restructuring of the university was it possible to gradually overcome the low point of Leipzig archaeology. Thanks to the approval of the Leipzig Cultural Foundation as the landlord, the original collection was given new permanent exhibition space in the historic building of the Alte Nikolaischule in 1994. Prior to this, nearly all of the almost 500 masterpieces on display had been repaired and restored to current scientific standards with the help of considerable contributions from many foundations and sponsors. With the move into new storage rooms for the original collection in 2001, the conditions for the gradual cataloguing of the holdings were also significantly improved. The historical plaster cast collection was also able to move into new large storage rooms in 1999 with the support of the university. A display gallery in the windows of the study hall of the Department of Classical Archaeology offers passers-by an insight into this collection, which is otherwise only accessible to a limited extent.
The Antikenmuseum is still a central pillar of archaeology studies at Leipzig University. It is involved in university teaching and research as part of various co-operations and occupies an important place in Leipzig's cultural life.
Become part of the Antikenmuseum
FRIENDS AND PATRONS OF THE ANTIKENMUSEUM AT THE UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG E. V.
The Friends and Sponsors of the Antikenmuseum of the University of Leipzig e. V. was founded in 1994. Its aim is to support the collection of originals and casts of ancient art in its development into a versatile instrument of archaeological teaching and research and to help make it accessible to the public, e.g. by promoting museum educational activities.
With your membership, together with other sponsors, you make a valuable contribution to the expansion of the University's Museum of Antiquities and thus to Leipzig's cultural diversity.
Board of Directors:
Chairman: Paul König
Deputy Chairman: Henry Tschörch
Secretary: Dr Jörn Lang
Treasurer: Dr Hans-Peter Müller
BECOME A MEMBER
As a member you have the advantages of:
- Visit the Museum of Antiquities and special exhibitions in the museum free of charge,
- receive discounts on special events,
- acquire replicas of exhibits from the collection at more favourable conditions,
- regularly receive the Museum of Antiquities' current programme of events,
- take part exclusively in guided tours and trips to archaeological events.
Registration forms are available at the ticket office of the Antikenmuseum in the Alte Nikolaischule or by post or e-mail at the contact addresses given above.
Membership fees
Single member: 15,00 €
Couples: 25,00 €
Single member (reduced amount):
Pupils/job seekers € 5.00
Students/apprentices/senior citizens: € 7.00
Corporations/companies: € 100.00
Contact
Friends and Supporters of the Antikenmuseum of the University of Leipzig e. V.
c/o Leipzig University, Department of History, Classical Archaeology and Museum of Antiquities
Ritterstraße 14
04109 Leipzig
Tel.: 0341/9730700
Fax: 0341/9730709
E-mail: paul.koenig(at)posteo.de
Donation account
Stadt- und Kreissparkasse Leipzig
Account no.: 1090097545
IBAN: DE60 860 555 92 1090097545
BIC: WELADE8LXXX
Team
Staff members
Ticket office phone: 0341 2118516
- Martina Kröber
- Birgit Prawitz
- Gabriele Freund
- Gesa Maaß
- Anika Remke