Schimmernde Schönheiten: Brass Objects of Art Nouveau and Art Deco — Museumsdorf Cloppenburg, 18 October 2026 – 4 April 2027

Brass is the metal that the Art Nouveau and Art Deco workshops reached for when they wanted shine without the price of silver — and it took the new forms well, whether they bent like a plant stem or stood square and geometric. Schimmernde Schönheiten. Messingobjekte des Jugendstils und des Art Déco (“Shimmering Beauties. Brass Objects of Art Nouveau and Art Deco”), at the Museumsdorf Cloppenburg in Lower Saxony, brings together around 150 individual pieces and sets made between 1895 and 1935 to show, in the museum’s words, the creative possibilities and the stylistic range of the new artistic movements at the start of the twentieth century.

Some of the names are well known: Friedrich Adler, Peter Behrens, Jan Eisenloeffel. Others are makers the museum describes as previously unknown, which is part of the point — brass was the material of the smaller firm and the everyday object, not only of the celebrated designer. The exhibition is held in collaboration with the Deutsches Messing Museum für angewandte Kunst in Krefeld, the German brass museum for applied arts.

The setting is an open-air museum of rural buildings, and the show is installed on the first floor of the Münchhausenscheune, one of the historic barns on the grounds. The museum notes that this floor is reached by stairs only.

From 8 November 2026 a companion exhibition, Glanz in der guten Stube – Jugendstil und Art Déco im norddeutschen Alltag, follows the same two styles into the parlours and everyday objects of North German homes.

Practical details

• Dates: 18 October 2026 – 4 April 2027
• Opening hours: March to October 9am–6pm; November to February 9am–4.30pm
• Admission: €12 adults; €8 reduced; €4 children and young people aged 6–18; family day ticket €25, small family ticket (one adult with children) €13
• Where: Münchhausenscheune (first floor), Museumsdorf Cloppenburg, Bether Straße 6, 49661 Cloppenburg, Germany
• Information: museumsdorf.de — +49 4471 9484-0

Cultural Heritage Online lists this exhibition because the decorative arts of 1895–1935 are heritage in their own right, and because a barn in an open-air museum is an unexpectedly good place to see how the shine of the new century reached ordinary houses.