2003
The Werner Abegg Collection – the Early Years

4th May – 16th November 2003
daily 2 p.m. – 5.30p.m.


This year’s Abegg-Stiftung special exhibition focuses on the young Werner Abegg’s passion for collecting. His early purchases already reflect a man with wide interests and broad horizons, who in just a few years was to lay the foundations for a collection of global standing.

Werner Abegg started collecting works of art around the end of the 1920s. A combination of personal determination and favourable circumstances allowed him to put together a prestigious collection very quickly. He had a special interest in medieval and Renaissance applied art, and concentrated above all on textile art from late classical antiquity to the eighteenth century.
By 1939, when the imminent threat of war led Werner Abegg to move from Turin to New York, the emphasis and contours of the collection were already clear. Those decisions have shaped the character and activities of the Abegg-Stiftung to this day.
The exhibition shows a selection of Werner Abegg’s early purchases. The richly illustrated accompanying publication tells the story of the collector and the beginnings of his collection.

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This year’s Abegg-Stiftung special exhibition focuses on the young Werner Abegg’s passion for collecting. His early purchases already reflect a man with wide interests and broad horizons, who in just a few years was to lay the foundations for a collection of global standing.

Werner Abegg started collecting works of art around the end of the 1920s, when economic crisis was forcing many institutions to sell parts of their art collections. A combination of personal determination and favourable circumstances allowed Werner Abegg to put together a prestigious collection very quickly.
From the outset, Werner Abegg had a special interest in medieval and Renaissance applied art, and concentrated above all on textile art from late classical antiquity to the eighteenth century. Among his earliest acquisitions we find precious textiles from Egypt and ornate faiences from ancient Persia. Romanesque bronzes and enamels take their place beside Spanish and Italian textiles from the High Middle Ages, splendid Renaissance velvets alongside baroque silks in the bizarre style.
Collecting works of art was something Werner Abegg knew from his parental home. He was born in 1903 in Zurich, grew up in a cultivated atmosphere, and was also introduced to textiles at an early age. While still of school age, Werner Abegg joined his uncle August Abegg’s textile manufacturing business in northern Italy, and when his uncle died in 1924 Werner Abegg took charge of the company. The fascination for textiles that he developed at this time was to last for the rest of his life.
By 1939, when the imminent threat of war led Werner Abegg to move from Turin to New York, the emphasis and contours of the collection were already clear. Those decisions have shaped the character and activities of the Abegg-Stiftung to this day.
The exhibition shows a selection of Werner Abegg’s early purchases. The richly illustrated accompanying publication tells the story of the collector and the beginnings of his collection.


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