Private museum

Private museum is a collection to a usually very narrowly defined topic and operated by individual enthusiasts, collectors and clubs. In contrast to a government or public museum, a scientific monitoring and systematic documentation is not always guaranteed. Therefore, private museums have for historical research often does not merit any importance, as they complement the national collections. Under certain conditions, a private museum receives funding from the state, so that a comparison with public museums is given. The museum concept is not protected in Germany.

Many, especially small private museums do not meet the requirement of the International Council of Museums (ICOM ) defines a museum as " a non-profit, permanent, publicly accessible institution in the service of society and its development, for study, education and entertainment purposes material evidence of people and their environment procured, conserves, researches, makes and known issues " .. This is due to that qualified personnel are not sufficiently available or can hardly be financed and thus often very limited opening times can be offered.

For economic reasons, the recent public museums are in some states privatized, ie they are only partly funded by taxpayers' money, the rest comes from donations and foundations. So far back state museums in the vicinity of private museums and are increasingly subject to the same restrictions.

Conversely, private collections are also sold by the state; an example is the Villa Borghese (Rome).

Since the 1990s, a new trend in the German museum landscape can be seen in the field of visual arts. More and more private collectors and gatherers make their art collections in museums and private own showrooms open to the public. They are operated exclusively at private expense and without public subsidies. These young private initiatives often meet museum standards and are available in many places in par with the traditional public art museums. Examples are the Würth Museum ( founded in 1991 in Künzelsau ), the Goetz Collection ( founded in 1993 in Munich), the Fondation Beyeler ( founded in 1997 in Riehen, Switzerland), the Essl Museum (founded in Klosterneuburg, A 1999), the Museum Frieder Burda ( founded in 2004 in Baden- Baden), the Langen Foundation (founded in Neuss 2004) ( founded in Forest Book 2005), the Museum Ritter, the Kunsthalle Weishaupt (founded in Ulm, 2007), the Museum Biedermann ( founded in 2008 in Donaueschingen ) or the me Collectors Room Berlin ( founded in 2010 in Berlin).