August Kestner Museum

The August Kestner Museum (German: Museum August Kestner) is an art and archaeological museum located in Hanover, Germany, in the Mitte district near the Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall). Founded in 1889, it is the oldest municipal museum in the state capital of Lower Saxony. The museum was renamed in December 2007 from its previous name, Kestner-Museum, to avoid confusion with the Kestnergesellschaft, a local contemporary art gallery. It is recognized as one of the most important museums of applied art in Germany and, since November 2014, forms part of the museum network "Museen für Kulturgeschichte Hannover" alongside the Historisches Museum Hannover and Museum Schloss Herrenhausen.

The museum's origins lie in the private collecting activities of August Kestner (1777-1853), who spent 36 years as Hanoverian envoy in Rome. There he amassed a significant collection of Egyptian and Greco-Roman small-scale art and other objects. Upon his death, his nephew Hermann Kestner inherited the collection with the instruction to donate it to Hanover and make it publicly accessible. The collection was augmented by the holdings of Senator Friedrich Culemann, another Hanoverian collector, comprising medieval craft objects and antiquities. These combined collections formed the founding nucleus of the museum, which was inaugurated on 9 November 1889. The first director, Carl Schuchhardt, served until 1908 when he moved to the Völkerkundemuseum in Berlin. The museum suffered partial destruction from bombing during the Second World War. Between 1958 and 1961, a reconstruction and expansion enveloped the surviving structure in a glass-and-concrete facade. The museum's holdings continued to grow through donations, bequests, and acquisitions, notably the 1935 acquisition of Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Bissing's collection, predominantly Egyptian objects, and the coin collection of lawyer and notary Horst Egon Berkowitz. Under the directorship of Wolfgang Schepers (1999-2014), the museum intensified its focus on product design to bring the institution closer to contemporary concerns. The museum is supported by the friends' and patrons' association "Antike & Gegenwart e. V.", founded in 1979.

The August Kestner Museum holds four principal collection areas spanning 6,000 years of applied art: Ancient Egypt, Classical Antiquity, Applied Art and Design, and Numismatics. The Egyptian collection covers material from the 4th millennium BCE through the Roman-Christian period, including reliefs (notably from the Amarna period), sculptures, stelae, vessels, amulets, papyri, and funerary equipment. The Classical Antiquities collection encompasses Greek vases and Etruscan art of world rank, bronze and terracotta statuettes, and everyday objects such as glassware, clay lamps, and bronze utensils from the Mediterranean and Near East, spanning 1500 BCE to 500 CE. Its gem collection ranks among the largest in Germany. The Applied Art and Design collection features medieval manuscripts, textiles, bronzes, ivory, enamel, and goldsmith work across all periods to the present, including a significant contemporary design collection. The Numismatics collection, with approximately 100,000 pieces, is the largest of its kind in northern Germany, documenting 2,600 years of monetary history from the earliest Greek coinages through Roman Republican and Imperial coins to Byzantine lead seals and coins. Parts of the closed Museum für Energiegeschichte(n) were transferred to the August Kestner Museum in 2021.

The museum's Egyptian collection is distinguished by its extensive holdings of Amarna-period reliefs. Its Greek vase collection and Etruscan art are recognized as being of world rank. The gem collection constitutes one of the most significant in Germany. The numismatic collection's breadth, from ancient Greek origins through Roman and Byzantine periods, makes it a research resource of regional and international importance. In 2026, the museum lent a bust of Trajan to the Provinciaal Archeocentrum Velzeke. The museum has hosted significant temporary exhibitions, including "Das Geheimnisvolle Grab 63" (The Mysterious Tomb 63) featuring the work of Susan Osgood in 2010, and "Kaiser, Krieger, Schlachtverlierer. Die Münzen des Augustus im Museum August Kestner" in 2009. Scholarly publications associated with the museum include works on Byzantine lead seals by Werner Seibt and on Greek-Roman plaster molds from Egypt by Britta Rabe.

The museum occupies a distinctive architectural presence in Hanover's city center. The original 1889 building featured a Neo-Renaissance facade, portions of which survive internally, including parts of the staircase, side wings, and almost the entire original entrance facade. Following wartime damage, the structure was reconceived between 1958 and 1961 with a modern glass-and-concrete facade comprising approximately 5,000 windows, which encloses the remaining historic fabric. This concrete cube is now itself protected as a historic monument (denkmalgeschützt). The museum's location adjacent to the Neues Rathaus places it at a prominent site in Hanover's civic center.

The August Kestner Museum is located in Hanover's Mitte district, next to the Neues Rathaus, with its official website at https://www.hannover.de/Museum-August-Kestner. Since November 2014, it has operated as part of the "Museen für Kulturgeschichte Hannover" network, together with the Historisches Museum Hannover and Museum Schloss Herrenhausen. The museum is municipally owned, administered by the city of Hanover (Landeshauptstadt Hannover). Thomas Schwark served as director of the network from 2014 to 2023; since June 2023, Anne Gemeinhardt, a historian and museum educator, has held the directorship. The supporting association "Antike & Gegenwart e. V." continues to foster the museum's activities.