Chinese contemporary art in Mauensee Castle

19 February 2022

Castle Mauensee (Canton of Lucerne) was first mentioned in 1184 and again in 1340. Lucerne acquired ownership of the castle in 1455. However, two years later, the castle and the lake were sold again and changed hands several times over the following centuries.

The present castle was built in 1605. In the following centuries, ownership changed several times. Since 1998, the castle, the island, and the lake have been owned and inhabited by the Sigg family.

Ulrich Adolf Sigg (1946), Switzerland’s ambassador to China from 1995 to 1998, began collecting Chinese contemporary art in the 1970s, a time when interest in the genre was limited. For a few decades, he amassed the world’s most significant collection of contemporary Chinese art.

The island is not open to the public and is accessible only by a bridge connecting it to the mainland.

(Source and further information: www.mauensee.ch).