Glasmuseum Passau - the world's greatest collection of Loetz glass
The beautiful German city of Passau lies in Southern Bavaria, Germany, at the confluence of three rivers, the Danube, Inn and Ilz. It is well known for housing the second largest chuch organ in the world, and the largest in Europe, within St. Stephen's Cathedral. Many tourists know Passau best as the starting point for Danube river cruises to Vienna, Budapest and beyond to the Black Sea.
For glass collectors, however, it is most famous as the home of the Glass Museum Passau (in German, Glasmuseum Passau), the greatest and most extensive collection of Bohemian glass anywhere in the world, dating from 1650 till 1950. Jugendstil glass is particularly well represented, and there are over 1000 Loetz pieces, including many of the celebrated Hofstötter vases shown at the 1900 Paris Exposition.
The museum website, www.glasmuseum.de is in German but is easy to navigate and includes lots of photos. Click on 'Glassammlung' at the top, then on 'Panoramen', then on 'Jugendstil Lötz', and you will be rewarded with a 360 degree view of just one of the Loetz rooms, including numerous Phaenonen pieces and, in the central island, priceless examples from the Paris Exposition.
If you are able to visit Passau, stay at the Hotel Wilder Mann, www.wilder-mann.com which is in the same building and under the same ownership as the museum. The hotel website is in both German and English, and also has a short English description of the Glass Museum www.wilder-mann.com/en/hotel/passau-glass-museum.html.
You may want to combine your trip to Passau with visits to Linz where there's more Loetz glass in the Palace Museum, as well as museums in Salzburg, Austria, and Munich, Germany. Just over the Czech border you can visit the site of the former Loetz glassworks in Klášterský Mlýn (German: Klostermuehle), where only the Jugendstil villa that was owned by Max von Spaun survives, and also visit the Šumavy Museum in Sušice, with its fine collection of Loetz glass.
