The acquisition in 2003 of a southern German painting collection that was part of the former Princely Fürstenberg Collections in Donaueschingen – one of the most important and highly distinguished private collections of late medieval art defined a new emphasis for the Würth Collection.

It consists of the renowned masters of Upper Rhine painting of the 15th and 16th centuries, including Hans Holbein the Elder, the Master of Meßkirch, Lucas Cranach the Elder and the Younger, Bernhard Strigel, Hans Schäufelein, Andreas Haider, Barthel Beham, and the Zurich Master of the Violet.

The collection was meaningfully expanded through paintings by Lucas Cranach the Elder and Peter Gertner, as well as sculptures of outstanding quality by Daniel Mauch, Tilman Riemenschneider, and other artists. Highlights in the collection’s history include the acquisition of the »Madonna of the Lord Mayor Jacob Meyer zum Hasen« by Hans Holbein the Younger, in 2011, the Falkenstein Altarpiece by the Master of Meßkirch, in 2013, and Hubert Gerhard’s »Madonna and Child«, in 2026.

Above and beyond these individual masterpieces of exceptional art-historical significance, the importance of the Old Masters collection lies primarily in its ensemble character. The works originate from a period from which only very few visual documents have survived due to the particularly radical campaigns of iconoclasm that raged in Swabia. The Old Masters have found an ideal home comprising 350 m² of exhibition space in the extensively restored Johanniterkirche, whose foundation stone was laid as early as the 12th century.