Kunstmuseum Luzern owns a small but very significant group of panel paintings from the 16th and 17th centuries. Most of the works come from sacred and profane buildings from the nearby surroundings, which have over the centuries been abandoned, altered or demolished. The paintings are accordingly torn from their original context and act today as relics of an artistic and architectural context that is in most cases no longer known.

The exhibition shows major works such as Hans Holbein the Younger’s (1497-1543) wall painting of the Knight Collatinus at the former Hertenstein House from 1517, and Martin Moser’s (c. 1500-1568) wooden panels from the private chapel of the Pfyffer-Bell family on the Weinmarkt in Lucerne, and, with documents and reconstructions, communicate their historical contexts. The presentation is complemented with a small number of loans – thus, for example, the exhibition will show all the panel paintings by Kaspar Meglinger (1595-1670) from the Spreuer Bridge, which have not occupied their original location since the shortening of the bridge in the late 18th century, but ended up in the stores of the City Department of Monuments and in Museum of Art Lucerne.

The works, usually exhibited as individual paintings, are presented according to their original functions, for example as two-sided altar-wings. In this way it becomes possible to understand that the paintings were not conceived for quiet contemplation, as we are accustomed to seeing them in museums today, but as elements within a liturgical context.