The carefully created and extensive collection of artworks and utility objects from 2,500 years, is clearly arranged by country and decorative techniques. Numerous acquisitions have increased the museum's valuable foundation systematically over the years and significantly enriched. The special orientation as well as global importance and its exclusive private sponsorship make this museum unique.

The collection, structured by regions, is often lovingly arranged in small and or delicate exhibits. The aesthetics and beauty of these artworks reveal themselves to the observer at the first glance, the treasure becomes even more significant, if one gets to know more about the elaborate production techniques. People have always been fascinated by lacquer. Not only the ability to protect objects, is characteristic. Through its shine, it also gives them a very special beauty and attraction.

The beginnings of this paint art are found in China, from where the oldest object in the collection stems. It is a burial object of a high-ranking personality from the 5th-century BC. However, the material was only with the introduction of Buddhism, in the middle of the 6th-century AD, and the construction of temples and monasteries, used for great art. In the middle of the 16th-century, first East Asian lacquer ware came to Europe by sea, and excited the courtly society. Well into the 18th-century, the European lacquer art emancipated itself from the East Asian art and developed its own decorative techniques and independent motif language. Much earlier, however, the traditions of this paint art developed in the Islamic world, whose beginning go back well into the 11th-century. In India, Persia and Turkey the history of the lacquer technology is seen as a bridge between Asia and Europe. The BASF Coatings GmbH is supporting the museum. The company, with the headquarter in Münster, is part of the international working Coatings Division of the BASF Group. The group Coatings develops, produces and markets a high-quality range of innovative vehicle, car repair and industrial varnish. The museum is open from Wednesday to Sunday and on public holidays from 12noon to 6pm. Tuesdays from 12noon to 8pm. Guided tours through the display collection take place Sundays at 3pm, guided tours through the permanent collection Tuesdays at 5.30pm.