Glassware Hallway

The small hall is decorated with large 18th-century canvas paintings. Of the landscape pictures on the left-hand wall near the narrow side door, one supposes a Dutch landscape. In the left side of the picture ramblers with dogs are walking on a narrow path towards the forest situated in the background of the picture. On the right-hand side there are fishermen at a lake and a woman with a child on her back. There is a village in the background.

The conservatory measures carried out in 2000-2001 established that when paintings from Belgium and the Netherlands came to the Couven-Museum in the 1950s, they had been extensively painted over to fit in with the room situation. As with the paintings in the Banqueting Hall, a special mounting technique was also developed for the Glass Hall by the Cologne restorers. Again this allows the paintings to be mounted close to the wall, while ensuring ventilation behind the paintings. The paintings on the right-hand side of the room, which frame the glass cabinet, show various animals on the banks. To the left of the cabinet is a swan, a partridge and a blue bird, on the right-hand painting a small white dog startles the swan sitting on the bank and the ducks in the water. The depiction of the animals is very natural and of high artistic quality. They clearly emanate from a different studio than the other landscape paintings of the Couven Museum.

Cut glasses from the 16th-18th century are exhibited in the centrally situated glass cabinet. The glasses and goblets are mainly decorated with hunting motifs, sometimes with coats of arms or aphorisms. For instance the image of a deer hunt with dogs and horsemen is circumscribed with „La peine suit les plaisirs“ ; the motif of a man riding on a cockerel is inscribed „Der Weiber untreu macht solche reitterey“.