Akademisches Kunstmuseum (Academic Art Museum), Bonn

The Academic Art Museum invites visitors into the refined world of classical art. Established in 1818 as part of the University of Bonn, this distinguished institution is the city’s oldest museum and was the first in Germany to bring together casts and originals under one roof-significantly enhancing the study of antiquities beyond dispersed university holdings.

Set within an elegantly renovated neoclassical structure that was originally conceived in the 1820s as an anatomical institute by architects Karl Friedrich Schinkel and Hermann Waesemann, the museum features a grand rotunda and harmoniously proportioned façades. Over time, the structure evolved-first accommodating plaster cast displays in the 1880s, then later receiving careful expansions-each preserving its architectural dignity while making room for a growing collection.

Today, the museum showcases one of the world’s most extensive collections of ancient plaster casts-around 2,700 in total-alongside more than 25,000 original artifacts such as pottery, terracotta figures, bronze sculptures, textiles, coins, and even a rare Minoan larnax, a small, closed clay coffin used for burials in Bronze Age Crete, decorated in marine style.