Named after its founder, Laurenz Heinrich Hetjens – a wealthy ceramics collector from Düsseldorf and an expert in Rhenish stoneware – the museum is regarded as the most comprehensive of its kind and has a long history of its own.
The exhibits, which come from all over the world, are up to 8,000 years old. The collection has been open to the public since 1909 and now occupies over 8,500 m² of exhibition space. Highlights of the museum, which is housed alongside the Film Museum in the Carlstadt district, include ancient and pre-Columbian pottery, rare stoneware vessels, Islamic ceramics, an extensive collection of fine porcelain, and the Asian section, which was redesigned in 2018.
