Veste Coburg Art Collections, Art museum in Coburg, Germany.
The Kunstsammlungen der Veste Coburg is a cultural-history museum housed in the fortress of the same name above Coburg. Its four focal points are a print cabinet, a glass collection, a historical weapons collection and Old German masters, centred on Lucas Cranach the Elder and his circle. Since 1998 the museum uses the entire fortress, combining historic rooms with modern displays; the European Museum of Modern Glass in Rödental belongs to it.
Built around 1200 as one of the largest Hohenstaufen fortifications, the castle became a Saxon electoral residence in the Reformation era and gave Martin Luther shelter during the 1530 Diet of Augsburg. It served as a garrison until 1802. Duke Ernst I began restoring the ruined complex in 1837 in neo-Gothic style under Carl Alexander Heideloff, and the first rooms opened to the public in 1839.
The museum's name comes from the dukes of Coburg, whose varied collecting interests shaped its four focal points: the print cabinet, the glass collection, the historic weapons collection and Old German masters centred on Lucas Cranach the Elder and his circle. Duke Alfred's estate included several thousand Venetian glasses, the basis of the glass collection's reputation.
The entire fortress is used by the art collections, so the visit covers the historic rooms and the modern displays in the same complex. The buildings belong to the Free State of Bavaria, which maintains them, while the Coburg State Foundation holds the collections. The ducal family's right of use to the Fürstenbau ended in 1998, after which it was restored and opened to the museum.
The collection's best-known loss is the bridal carriage of Johann Friedrich the Magnanimous, built in 1527 and destroyed in the Second World War despite the evacuation of most holdings. The museum also keeps the Turkish booty acquired in 1860 from Prince Friedrich Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and his son Friedrich von Rohmann.
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