Museum for East-Asian Arts

All of the museum's exhibitions come with a variety of different programs – guided tours, workshops, lectures or special events, for adults, school classes, children or the whole family. With their collection, the museum’s founders hoped to convey a comprehensive picture of every genre and period of East Asian art. But in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was anything but easy to imagine how Chinese art, for example, had developed. China was in a semi-colonial state; there were no public museums. Only in Japan did the national museums in Tokyo, Kyoto and Nara, built according to Western models, already exist, in which treasures from China were collected and exhibited in addition to Japanese art. Fischer's diaries show that he often visited the museums and maintained close contact with their directors and curators. Before making major purchasing decisions, he studied comparative pieces in museums and sought the advice of experts. The Fischers also acquired all the specialist literature they could get their hands on. However, the offer was very manageable, because East Asian art history as a scientific discipline, which was only inspired by collector pioneers like the Fischers, was still in its infancy.