The Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe: inventories
Founded in 1919, the Badisches Landesmuseum in Karlsruhe is the largest museum of culture, art and regional history in the Baden region of Baden-Württemberg. Some of the collections housed in Karlsruhe Palace date back even further, originating from the Baden princely lines, who had been interested in ‘ancient artefacts’ and antiquities since the 16th century.
Friedrich Maler (1799–1875), Baden's chargé d'affaires to the Holy See, acquired vases and terracottas from southern Italy and Sicily for the Karlsruhe Kunsthalle in 1838, thus laying the foundation for a collection that remains prominent to this day. Maler's private collection of antique bronzes was purchased in 1853.
As early as 1850, the founder of antiquarian research in south-western Germany, the parish priest and chairman of the Sinsheim Antiquarian Society, Karl Wilhelmi (1785–1857), had donated the Sinsheim Antiquarium to the Grand Ducal Collections. The appointment of August von Bayer (1803–1875), Grand Ducal court painter and director of the Baden Antiquarian Society, as curator of antiquities and art monuments in 1853 marked the recognition of monument preservation as a state institution and the establishment and organisation of a patriotic antiquities collection. Von Bayer was responsible for bringing together the objects stored at various locations and setting up an antiquities hall, which, however, proved to be too small shortly after its opening in 1859.
His successor, Ernst Wagner (1832–1920), initially devoted himself to setting up the new collection building on Friedrichsplatz: the collection was exhibited in what is now the Natural History Museum until the end of the monarchy. For over four decades (1875–1919), Wagner shaped the fortunes of the ‘Vereinigten Sammlungen für Altertums- und Völkerkunde’ (‘United Collections of Antiquities and Ethnology’) as its director. The collection system he introduced in 1878, which was subdivided according to criteria such as material, type, region of origin and period, divided the holdings into several inventories distinguished by capital letters, some of which were continued until the end of the Second World War. Wagner also integrated some older, existing inventories, such as the collection of Turkish trophies belonging to Margrave Ludwig Wilhelm von Baden (D inventory) and the inventory of the Grand Ducal Armoury (G inventory), which was started in 1835 and 1862. However, he dissolved the Kunsthalle inventory of vases, terracottas and bronzes, which had been kept since 1852, and transferred the objects to the B- (ancient vases and terracottas) and F-inventories (ancient bronzes). The Ethnographic Collection (A Inventory) and the Sammlung Vaterländischer Altertümer (Collection of Antiquities of the Fatherland) (C Inventory) grew enormously during the Wagner era. However, the ‘Badisches Landesmuseum’ (Baden State Museum), which had already been conceived by the long-standing director towards the end of his term of office, was not realised until after his departure in 1919.
After the fall of the monarchy, the Badisches Landesmuseum was founded in 1919 and housed in the former residential palace. The new museum combined the holdings of the ‘Sammlungen für Altertums- und Völkerkunde’ (‘Collections of Antiquities and Ethnography’) and the Museum of Decorative Arts (1890–1918) and was expanded in 1936 to include the numismatic collection.
The letter inventory system, which had been in use since 1878, was replaced in 1953 by year inventories with consecutive numbering, which were decoupled from the collection areas.