The Neess Collection is one of the most important European private collections of Art Nouveau and Symbolism. In 2017, 570 works from the collection were donated to Museum Wiesbaden and are since then on permanent display. The collection includes numerous fin-de-siècle masterpieces of art-historical significance. The paintings, pastels and watercolours, more than ninety in all, are the work of notable artists from all over Europe. French Symbolism is represented by Gustave Moreau and his pupil Edgar Maxence, as well as Alphonse Osbert, while examples of works from the Belgian movement are by the hand of Fernand Khnopff and Jean Delville. Paintings by Franz von Stuck, Heinrich Vogeler, Ludwig von Hofmann and Karl Wilhelm Diefenbach exemplify significant German trends within Symbolism and Jugendstil. The collection also includes works from Great Britain by renowned Pre-Raphaelite artists such as Edward Burne­Jones, Evelyn De Morgan and John Melhuish Strudwick. In the field of sculpture, works by Alphonse Mucha and George Minne should be mentioned.

The core of the collection is the group of decorative art pieces, encompassing furniture, glass, porcelain and ceramics with entire suites of furniture by Émile Gallé, Hector Guimard and Louis Majorelle, as well as by Bernhard Pankok and Richard Riemerschmid. The collection is also enriched by an abundance of art glass pieces with vases, bowls, lamps and chandeliers by Émile Gallé, Muller Frères, Daum Frères, Johann Lotz Witwe and Tiffany. The display of porcelain and ceramics includes pieces by Ernst Wahliss, Michael Powolny and Albin Muller. Also, the interconnectedness of the collection has to be stressed: Not only can the audience visit the collection within Hans Volckers Gesamtkunstwerk of museal architecture; its interior design building the bridge between Art Nouveau and Historism. Artists such as Ernst Riegel, Hans Christiansen, Albin Muller and Henry van de Velde have left behind traces of Art Nouveau in the city of Wiesbaden – and their works in the collection connect to that local heritage. The collection offers a representative insight, in terms of both quality and quantity, into the artistic production of the fin de siècle between Art Nouveau and Symbolism.