The Landesmuseum Mainz, or Mainz State Museum, is a museum of art and history in Mainz

Mainz

Mainz under the Holy Roman Empire, and previously was a Roman fort city which commanded the west bank of the Rhine and formed part of the northernmost frontier of the Roman Empire...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

. In March 2010 it reopened in full after an extensive renovation.

The museum has its roots in a painting collection donated by Napoleon and Chaptal

Jean-Antoine Chaptal

Jean-Antoine Claude, comte Chaptal de Chanteloup was a French chemist and statesman. He established chemical works for the manufacture of the mineral acids, soda and other substances...

 to the city of Mainz in 1803. It moved into its current location, in the former electoral stables, in 1937, by which time it had grown significantly. It received its present name in 1986, and was renovated and modernised from 2004 to 2010.

Collections

(Partial list.)

Pre-Historic and Roman Departments

Antiquities from the Mainz area, including a Venus-like statue

Venus figurines

Venus figurines is an umbrella term for a number of prehistoric statuettes of women portrayed with similar physical attributes from the Upper Palaeolithic, mostly found in Europe, but with finds as far east as Irkutsk Oblast, Siberia, extending their distribution to much of Eurasia, from the...

 from 23,000 BC; stone axes from the Late Stone Age

Late Stone Age

The Later Stone Age refers to a period in African prehistory. Its beginnings are roughly contemporaneous with the European Upper Paleolithic...

; Roman stone memorials; busts of bronze and marble; a 1st-century Roman Jupiter Column

Jupiter Column

A Jupiter Column is an archaeological monument belonging to a type widespread in Roman Germania. Such pillars express the religious beliefs of their time. They were erected in the 2nd and 3rd centuries AD, mostly near Roman settlements or villas in the Germanic provinces...

; a 3rd-century Roman arch.

Prince Johann Georg Collection

Near-Eastern finds assembled by Prince Johann Georg

Prince Johann Georg of Saxony

Prince Johann Georg Pius Karl Leopold Maria Januarius Anacletus of Saxony, Duke of Saxony was the sixth child and second-eldest son of George...

, including medieval icons, Byzantine art

Byzantine art

Byzantine art is the term commonly used to describe the artistic products of the Byzantine Empire from about the 5th century until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453....

 and Egyptian relics.

Medieval Department

A Byzantine spangenhelm

Spangenhelm

The Spangenhelm was a popular European war combat helmet design of the Early Middle Ages. The name is of German origin. Spangen refers to the metal strips that form the framework for the helmet and could be translated as clips, and -helm simply means helmet. The strips connect three to six steel or...

; a Madonna

Madonna (art)

Images of the Madonna and the Madonna and Child or Virgin and Child are pictorial or sculptured representations of Mary, Mother of Jesus, either alone, or more frequently, with the infant Jesus. These images are central icons of Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox Christianity where Mary remains...

 made of ivory

Ivory

Ivory is a term for dentine, which constitutes the bulk of the teeth and tusks of animals, when used as a material for art or manufacturing. Ivory has been important since ancient times for making a range of items, from ivory carvings to false teeth, fans, dominoes, joint tubes, piano keys and...

; a relief

Relief

Relief is a sculptural technique. The term relief is from the Latin verb levo, to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is thus to give the impression that the sculpted material has been raised above the background plane...

 cycle of Prince Electors; a cycle of nine paintings of Mary

Mary (mother of Jesus)

Mary , commonly referred to as "Saint Mary", "Mother Mary", the "Virgin Mary", the "Blessed Virgin Mary", or "Mary, Mother of God", was a Jewish woman of Nazareth in Galilee...

 by the Master of the Housebook

Master of the Housebook

Master of the Housebook and Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet are two names used for an engraver and painter working in South Germany in the last quarter of the 15th century. He is apparently the first artist to use drypoint, a form of engraving, for all of his prints...

.

Renaissance Department

Works by Lorenzo di Credi

Lorenzo di Credi

Lorenzo di Credi was an Italian Renaissance painter and sculptor. He first influenced Leonardo da Vinci and then was greatly influenced by him.-Life:...

, Hans Baldung Grien (presumed), Peter Binoit

Peter Binoit

Peter Binoit, a flower painter of the 17th century, flourished in Cologne. In the Darmstadt Gallery there are two flower-pieces by him. One has his monogram and the date 1611, and the other is signed P. BINOIT. FRANCFORT 1620.-References:...

 (presumed), Philippe de Champaigne

Philippe de Champaigne

Philippe de Champaigne was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.-Early life:Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières...

, Willem Claeszoon Heda

Willem Claeszoon Heda

Willem Claeszoon Heda was one of the earliest Dutch Golden Age artists devoted exclusively to the painting of still lifes.-Biography:Heda was born in Haarlem,...

, and Jean Bardin

Jean Bardin

Jean Bardin, a French historical painter, born at Montbard in 1732, was a pupil of Lagrénée, the elder; and afterwards studied at Rome. He became a popular artist in France, and was admitted into the Academy in 1779. He was made director of the art school at Orléans in 1788. His subjects are partly...

.

Baroque Collection

17th- and 18th-century paintings, sculptures, furniture and porcelain from Germany, France, the Netherlands and Italy; a set of equipment belonging to Maximilian von Welsch

Maximilian von Welsch

Johann Maximilian von Welsch was a German architect, High Director of Building and fortress master builder.- Life :Maximilian von Welsch is regarded as a prominent representative of baroque fortress building in Germany. Besides this he got reputation with the construction of several...

.

19th- and 20th-century Paintings

Works by Philipp Veit

Philipp Veit

Philipp Veit was a German Romantic painter. To Veit is due the credit of having been the first to revive the almost forgotten technique of fresco painting.- Biography :Veit was born in Berlin, Prussia...

, Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Elder

Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Elder

Wilhelm Lindenschmit was a history painter who was born in Mainz. He was an older brother to prehistorian Ludwig Lindenschmit , and father to history painter Wilhelm Lindenschmit the Younger ....

, Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann

Max Liebermann was a German-Jewish painter and printmaker best known for his etching and lithography.-Biography:...

, Lovis Corinth

Lovis Corinth

Lovis Corinth was a German painter and printmaker whose mature work realized a synthesis of impressionism and expressionism....

, Antoni Tàpies

Antoni Tàpies

Antoni Tàpies i Puig, 1st Marquess of Tàpies is a Catalan painter. He is one of the most famous European artists of his generation. After studying law for 3 years, he devoted himself from 1943 onwards only to his painting...

, and one painting by Pablo Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

 (Head of a Woman). The large collection of Max Slevogt

Max Slevogt

Max Slevogt was a German Impressionist painter and illustrator, best known for his landscapes. He was, together with Lovis Corinth and Max Liebermann, one of the foremost representatives in Germany of the plein air style.-Biography:He was born in Landshut, Germany...

 paintings is mostly displayed in Villa Ludwigshöhe

Villa Ludwigshöhe

Villa Ludwigshöhe is a former summer residence of Ludwig I of Bavaria overlooking Edenkoben and Rhodt unter Rietburg in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany....

.

Graphics Collection

Works by Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas

Edgar Degas[p] , born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist...

, Paul Signac

Paul Signac

Paul Signac was a French neo-impressionist painter who, working with Georges Seurat, helped develop the pointillist style.-Biography:Paul Victor Jules Signac was born in Paris on 11 November 1863...

, Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley

Alfred Sisley was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life, in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedication to painting landscape en plein air...

, Picasso

Pablo Picasso

Pablo Diego José Francisco de Paula Juan Nepomuceno María de los Remedios Cipriano de la Santísima Trinidad Ruiz y Picasso known as Pablo Ruiz Picasso was a Spanish expatriate painter, sculptor, printmaker, ceramicist, and stage designer, one of the greatest and most influential artists of the...

, William Turner

William Turner

William Turner MA was an English divine and reformer, a physician and a natural historian. He studied medicine in Italy, and was a friend of the great Swiss naturalist, Conrad Gessner...

 (Mainz from the South, watercolour), Adolph von Menzel

Adolph von Menzel

Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel, was a German artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German artists of the 19th century, and was the most successful artist of his era in Germany...

, and Paul Klee

Paul Klee

Paul Klee was born in Münchenbuchsee, Switzerland, and is considered both a German and a Swiss painter. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. He was, as well, a student of orientalism...

.

Judaica

Items from Mainz's Jewish history, including the gravestone of Gershom ben Judah

Gershom ben Judah

Gershom ben Judah, best known as Rabbeinu Gershom and also commonly known to scholars of Judaism by the title Rabbeinu Gershom Me'Or Hagolah , was a famous Talmudist and Halakhist.Rashi of Troyes Gershom ben Judah, (c. 960 -1040? -1028?) best known as Rabbeinu Gershom (Hebrew: רבנו גרשום, "Our...

(d. 1049); cultural and religious items from the 18th and 19th centuries; gold- and silverware.

The museums also hosts teaching events.