Ducal Museum Gotha

[1] The constant growth of the ducal collections at Friedenstein Castle, including a library, art, coin and natural history cabinets, paintings, engravings and plaster casts, necessitated the construction of a new separate museum building.

In 1863 Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha commissioned one with the approval of the Duchy's parliament on the condition that it was open to the public and free-entry on Sundays.

Franz von Neumann the Elder (1815–1888) had been in the duke's service since 1839 and he was entrusted with designing the new museum in 1864, with construction work starting that June.

The Tannengarten (literally fir-tree garden) was added to the building's south in 1869,[3] with around 170 conifers of over 40 different varieties from all over the world planted in it, mainly in spring 1872.

Costing 9,000,000 Euros, the Ducal Museum's renovation was completed by 19 October 2013, when it reopened with 3000 square metres of display space.

The basement displays show ancient Greek, Roman and Egyptian art and 18th-century Italian cork models of buildings from those civilizations.

The complex is centred on a glass dome over a central octagon (housing a life-size 1882 Christian Behrens statue of Ernst II wearing the robes of a Knight of the Order of the Garter) and the main entrance (with two seated lions on the main staircase by sculptor Franz Melnitzky and two allegorical sandstone statues in the entrance hall), whilst its corners are designed like pavilions.