Main focus of the collection
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Sacred Art Works from the high Middle Ages up to the 20th century are represented in the collection. One especially significant group are objects from the late middle ages, including remarkable items such as sandstone figures from the choir buttress of the neighbouring St. Oswald’s church or the two tower monstrances. At that time, most of the artists and craftsmen came from outside Zug, but this changed in the Baroque period, when work was carried out by local painters, sculptors and goldsmiths. The latter in particular reached a level of national recognition, with their expertise demonstrated particularly in sculpted silver figures. Apart from the Catholic church, private donors also purchased religious art. Many of the valuable works of art on display are on permanent loan from the Catholic churches in the canton.
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Glass-staining From the 16th to the 18th century, the town of Zug was one of the most significant centres for the production of small pictorial and heraldic panels of stained-glass. In the 15th century it became customary to donate a stained-glass window panel to be put in new or renovated buildings, and to incorporate the donor’s name in the picture: a so-called cabinet panel. Allegorical, biblical and historical scenes were the usual subjects, but also pictorial portrayals of the professional or private life of the donors. When this custom went out of fashion shortly before 1800, the panels were sold – often abroad. The nucleus of the sizeable collection of stained-glass panels consists of earlier acquisitions, with the addition of 132 panels from a private collection in England.
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Portraits Generations come and go. They leave behind them not only artefacts they have made or used but also pictures of themselves. The Museum collects these portraits in the same way that written documents are collected in archives. In the late middle ages it was mainly benefactors who had their portraits painted, and in the Baroque period it was members of important families, but from the end of the 18th century the fashion had spread widely among the bourgeoisie too. Thus it was that the Zug artist Franz Josef Menteler (1777-1833) painted around 800 portraits, and the younger portrait painter Josef Stocker (1825-1908) no less than 1800. Prominent figures from Zug society over the centuries are reflected in this extensive portrait collection.
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Marianne Blatter’s photographic legacy A whole generation of Cham residents were captured on camera by the local photographer Marianne Blatter (1920-2004) between 1949 and 1995. Approximately 100,000 negatives, together with the order book, have provided Cham council with an invaluable fund of portrait photos from the second half of the 20th century. The photographer’s legacy consists not only of a collection of negatives, but also objects from her studio and photo shop. In addition, a video was filmed in her house, which shows the dark-room and other rooms in their original state, and explains her method of working. The video provides an interesting insight into the era of analogue photography. |
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Graphic Collection A further focal point of the Museum’s collection is a wide range of drawings and graphic reproductions covering a variety of pictorial subjects. Among them can be found numerous - some masterful - pictures of Zug town and canton, as well as other important pictorial themes such as historical scenes, portraits and reproductions of natural costumes. |
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Keiser’s legacy of tiled stove manufacture The stove manufacturers were working in Zug from 1856 until 1938, and were well-known throughout the region for the restoration of historic stoves – for example for the Swiss National Museum in Zurich – and for making reproductions of old stoves. The workshop mainly produced stoves in the Winterthur style of Graf and Pfau in the 16th & 17th centuries, later also in rococo and art nouveau style. Clientele came from far and wide and included the King of Rumania. Keiser’s legacy consists of glazed stove tiles, various types of ceramic, casting- moulds and tools, as well as an extensive archive of documents, specialist books, drafts and plans for stoves and patterns for stove-tile designs. |
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Coin and Medal Collection Coins were minted from 1564 until 1805 in Zug – before 1700 they were minted mainly for export and not for local requirements, and in Zug itself several different types of coin were in circulation. Today the Museum owns the most significant collection of Zug’s coinage in Switzerland. This consists of the Museum’s original collection plus the larger Luthiger collection; the latter having been accumulated by three generations of the Zug family of chemists and acquired by the Museum in 2005. The medal collection consists of a large, significant selection of medals struck for Zug. |
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Study Collection of Seal-Castings This collection, assembled by Paul Ernst Guckenberger between 1950 and 1965, is one of the most complete of its kind. His work was supported scientifically and technically by the Swiss National Museum. Apart from several original seals and seal stamps, the collection consists mainly of castings. No less than 8,200 are filed under churches, monarchs, nobility, surnames, confederation, towns, schools, associations and guilds: Added to that there are 12,000 duplicates and negatives. Geographically the main topics lie in the regions of the Confederation and in southern Germany. As Guckenberger had started collecting in Central Switzerland, the Zug Corporation felt inclined to purchase the collection in 1971, and it was presented to the Museum in 1975. |
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Legacy of Church Artist Fritz Kunz Fritz Kunz (1868-1947) from Einsiedeln, one of the most significant church painters in the Catholic part of German-Switzerland in the first half of the 20th century, studied at the Academy of Art in Munich. His work in the Liebfrauenkirche in Zurich and the Catholic Parish Church in Romanshorn are two of his most well-known. In 1919 he came to live in Zug. His legacy consists of oil paintings, large-scale chalk sketches, smaller coloured sketches for altar, wall and ceiling pictures, as well as for glass, plus study sheets, sketch books and work photographs. Important works from each period of his activity are to be found amongst the large number of pictures and sketches. |
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History of Industry A new focal point of the Museum’s activity is the acquisition of objects connected with Zug’s industrial history. Important Swiss companies established themselves in Zug in the 19th and 20th centuries and built up enterprises, some of them of international importance, whose heritage lives on. These industrial testaments to outstanding Zug culture heritage must be protected as unique carriers of the cantonal identity. The first task in this new venture is to conserve, document and communicate the artefacts on industrial design from the Design-Buro M&E (Muchenberger and Eichenberger) in Cham and Zug. The assortment consists of the products and models of the two designers, a collection of samples and prototypes as well as documents, pictorial material, brochures, publicity material and sketches. The gift – a godsend for the Museum – is a rich collection of the workof two notable Swiss pioneers in industrial design of the Ulm School. |
History of the Collections
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History of the Collections Objects of historical interest to Zug have been collected by the Museum since 1876. In 1879 the first – still small – museum was installed in the Gothic Room of the Town Hall, under the title “Historic, Antique Collection”. In the decades that followed, the Museum commissioners took pains to enlarge the collection regularly, and around 1906 the stained-glass and armoury collection came to Canton Zug. As well as the many objects that were donated to the museum each year, individual items of exceptional interest were purchased. |
