The Landesmuseum Württemberg has with the glass collection Ernesto Wolf over one of the most prestigious collections in the world - with glasses of four millennia. In a vault beneath the Old Palace 700 glass treasures are on display.
The ancient part of the collection has an enormous range, which makes it possible to show the ancient glass history from its beginnings to the late Roman and Byzantine times. The oldest objects date back to the Bronze Age. Egyptian vessels testify to the first golden age of glassmaking. To board luxury of the Hellenistic and early Roman period also included many colorful pieces.
With sophisticated finishing techniques for hollow glass Venice is the focus of post-medieval, European glass art. This wealth is managed in the exhibition impressively demonstrated. The Venetian glasses, one focus of the collection, Nuremberg stands as an early glass center north of the Alps opposite.
A variety of cut and polished trophies makes the peculiarities of German art landscapes in the late 17th and 18th centuries visible. The Netherlands is represented with fine cracked and gestippten goblets. Painted cup of the Biedermeier period and monumental vases of historicism decide to keep track of four thousand glass history.
With the acquisition of the glass collection Ernesto Wolf the museum from 1991 to 2003 expanded its collection and was put in a unique position to present the development of the glass from the ancient beginnings to the present gaps.
The collector Ernesto Wolf (1918-2003) was born in Stuttgart. His father, Alfred Wolf, had begun in the twenties to collect glass and has laid the foundation for today's collection. The economic crisis and the emigration of the Wolf family sat collection activities temporarily to an end.
After the Second World War, Ernesto Wolf began to increase the rescued by the timely retrieval glass collection of his father and systematically grow. His unerring eye for quality allowed the Wolf collection are one of the most important private collections of glass. With the exception of the Islamic glasses it is completely passed into the possession of the Württemberg State Museum.