Marina Beck (Dr. phil.) is lecturer and habilitation candidate at the Institute of Art History at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Between 2018 and 2023 she coordinated the research group »Shaping Cultural History: The Example of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and Curatorial Lessons for the Twenty-First Century«. In her habilitation project, she investigates how the image and sculpture programmes and the display strategies of army museums contributed to the creation of a national identity and thus to the process of nation-building in the nineteenth century. Her recent publications focus on display strategies in army museums, state museums and art museums.
Christina Strunck (Prof. Dr.) is chair of the Institute of Art History at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. She has published extensively on the architecture and decoration of early modern galleries and palaces, questions of national identity and methodological approaches to image-space ensembles. Between 2018 and 2023 she directed the research group »Shaping Cultural History: The Example of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum and Curatorial Lessons for the Twenty-First Century«.

Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
Foreword and Acknowledgements 7
Introduction: Spaces for Shaping the Nation 11
Precursors to and Reinterpretations of the National Museum 23
National Museums in Nineteenth-Century Europe 53
History in the Dutch National Museums 1800-1900 65
Conceiving a National Museum in the Federal State 89
Museums of a Stateless Nation, between History and Art 131
To no one Nation has been given the monopoly of genius 153
Educating the People 163
The Two (or Three?) National Museums of Sweden, 1840-1910 171
"Ein Nationalmuseum im vollsten und schönsten Sinne des Wortes" 183
Balancing the National and the Decorative Arts in the Bavarian National Museum in Munich 195
Objects in the Hall of F(r)ame 209
Visualizing Historical Greatness 231
The Sommerard Museum 255
Authors 277