Municipal Kramer Museum

The museum, established in 1912, grew out of three holdings: a small municipal collection that included council jugs from the 17th century, the collection of the local Art and Antiquities Society, and a bequest from Konrad Kramer. Kramer had assembled an extensive collection of high quality that made his name known well beyond Kempen. He left the city the greater part of his holdings - furniture, sacred sculpture, weapons, paintings, pewter, glass and ceramics - on the condition that the new museum be named after him. Endowments, donations and acquisitions have expanded the collection ever since.

The furniture collection is especially rich, ranging from post chests and Baroque cabinets to writing secretaries and pieces from the Gründerzeit and Art Nouveau periods. In the friary's former refectory, with its original white-and-blue tiles and stucco ceiling, hangs the picture gallery featuring figures important to Kempen's history. The former monastery kitchen still holds its hearth, complete with the so-called Takenplatte - a large metal plate depicting the Judgement of Solomon, dated 1746 - alongside working and household implements from the 18th and 19th centuries. After renovation, the redesigned permanent exhibition spans three cloister wings, tracing the city's story from its origins to the end of the 19th century and complemented by objects from the treasury of the parish church of St Mariae Geburt.

On the upper floor of the western cloister wing lies the coin cabinet. Ten display cases present around 800 coins arranged in two thematic series: coins that circulated in the town and district of Kempen from the 10th to the 20th century, and coins bearing rulers' portraits and symbols of power from the 7th century BC to the 20th century.