The Zeppelin Museum’s research on various art-historical themes is reflected in temporary exhibitions, but of course, our curators and staff also carry out research on the works of art that are already part of the museum’s permanent art collection. Both internal and external art historians may be involved in any one subject. The next major research and exhibition project deals with, and will present, the painter Johann Heinrich Schönfeld, born in 1609 in Biberach, who lived in Rome, Naples and Augsburg and created an oeuvre which made him the most important German painter of the 17th century. In view of the museum’s own collection of old masters, one priority is to verify traditional attributions. A number of paintings must be reviewed in the light of new art-historical findings, and these have to be integrated into the museum’s documentation.

One recent research project, for example, redated and identified the map of Asia as a painting by Thomann von Hagelstein, in preparation of the work being lent to the Frankfurt Städel art museum for its Adam Elsheimer retrospective.