Research

Current projects

Torah & Tablet

At the Bavarian School Museum Ichenhausen: A New Exhibition on the History of Jewish Schooling in Bavaria

At the Bavarian School Museum Ichenhausen, a branch of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, the exhibition on the history of Jewish schooling has been redesigned and officially reopened on 19 May 2026. Together with the former synagogue and the Jewish cemetery, this extracurricular place of learning adds an important new dimension to Jewish remembrance culture in Bavaria.

The new exhibition invites visitors on a journey through time from the Middle Ages to the present day, with a particular focus on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It begins with the introduction of compulsory schooling for Jewish children in 1804 under Elector Max IV Joseph and concludes with the founding of the “Helene Habermann Gymnasium” in Munich in 2016.

3D models, historical photographs, interactive hands-on exhibits and interviews with contemporary witnesses bring the development of Jewish education vividly to life. In addition, a digital guide provides more in-depth information on the individual thematic sections.

Provenance Research

on the Meissen Porcelain Collection of the Ernst Schneider Foundation at Lustheim Palace.

This most significant private collection of early Meissen porcelain was transferred to the Free State of Bavaria in 1968. Since no acquisition prior to 1933 has been conclusively documented for any of the more than 2,000 porcelain objects, the provenance of the entire collection must be investigated for possible Nazi-era, persecution-related confiscation. In such cases, the heirs must be identified in order either to restitute the objects to them or to reach another fair and just solution.
The two-year research project is being carried out in cooperation with the Hetjens Museum in Düsseldorf, which oversees a smaller part of the Schneider Collection at Jägerhof Palace.

The position at the Bavarian National Museum is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation in Magdeburg and the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts.

Weißes Gold

Bestandskatalog Meißener Porzellan der Sammlung Ernst Schneider

Die wissenschaftliche Bearbeitung umfasst die Bestände „Böttgersteinzeuge und Böttgerporzellane“ (72 Objekte) sowie „Meißener Porzellane mit Hausmaler-Dekoren, besonders der Augsburger Familien Aufenwerth und Seuter“ (63 Objekte) der Meißener Porzellan-Sammlung Stiftung Ernst Schneider in Schloss Lustheim. Der geplante Bestandskatalog wird neben der Erfassung dieses Teils der Sammlung auch Leben und Leistung des Sammlers Dr. Dr. h.c. Ernst Schneider darstellen.
Das Projekt wird gefördert von der Edith-Haberland-Wagner-Stiftung.

The Silver Restitution Project

The Bayerisches Nationalmuseum is working on the restitution of 111 objects from the silver confiscation imposed on German Jews in 1939 to descendants of the last legitimate owners. The current project "Search for Heirs to Silver Objects Confiscated in 1939 and now in the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum" is funded by the German Lost Art Foundation and the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and Art.

Excellent Ivories

Scientific Catalogue on Ivories

The project of a scientific catalogue of the ivory collection of the 16th to 18th centuries comprises the research on about 280 objects by some 70 artists from the ivory collection of the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. These include figurative ivories (statuettes, groups of figures, reliefs, and tankard vessels) as well as turned ivories, which are on display in the museum's permanent exhibition and at the Kunstkammer of Burg Trausnitz, the branch museum in Landshut. The planned catalogue will be supplemented by an scientific essay on the history of the Munich ivory collection.
The project is funded by the Eleonore Schamberger Foundation and the Reiner Winkler Foundation.