Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden)
Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden) features on the Gingerguide audio walk through Colmar. Give it roughly ~60 min: enough to look, hear a two to three minute story on the spot, and ask the AI guide whatever the story leaves open.
- Type museum
- Suggested visit ~60 min
- Colmar Colmar guide
About Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden)
Alsace's most visited museum, in a former Dominican convent, home to the Isenheim Altarpiece by Grünewald and Nicolas of Haguenau, and extended by Herzog & de Meuron in 2015.
The Musée Unterlinden is the most visited museum in Alsace, drawing around 200,000 visitors a year. Established in 1853, it occupies a former 13th-century Dominican convent whose chapel was built between 1262 and 1269, together with a 1906 former municipal baths and a 2009-2015 extension by the Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron that nearly doubled the floor space to about 8,000 square metres. The renovated museum reopened on 12 December 2015.
Its centrepiece is the Isenheim Altarpiece, a monumental polyptych created around 1512-1516, with paintings by Matthias Grünewald and carved figures by Nicolas of Haguenau. Made for an Antonite monastery hospital at Isenheim, about 24 kilometres south, it reached Colmar in 1852. The wider collection covers Upper Rhenish medieval and early Renaissance art, including works by Colmar-born Martin Schongauer, Albrecht Dürer, Lucas Cranach the Elder and Hans Holbein the Elder.
Did you know? The painter known as Matthias Grünewald did not go by that name in his lifetime; a 17th-century biographer coined it, and his real identity and dates remain genuinely uncertain to this day.
How long is a visit to Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden)?
Set aside roughly ~60 min for Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden). That covers a good look and the narrated story, and because you set the pace you can always stay on.
Is Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden) worth your time?
Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden) is among the 13 narrated highlights the Gingerguide team chose for Colmar, so it is worth a look. Hear the story for the context, then ask the AI guide for anything more.
Nearby stops in Colmar
Day 1 of the Colmar in 2 days itinerary →
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Hear the story of Unterlinden Museum (Musée Unterlinden)
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