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The renovation of one of Germany's most popular museums, the Green Vault in the eastern city of Dresden, wrapped up Tuesday and it will reopen to the public in September.
The Green Vault, which was the treasure chamber of the region's Saxon rulers, houses a collection of precious furniture and jewelry unparalleled in the country.
It had been closed for four years undergoing a thorough 45-million-euro (54-million-dollar) makeover.
Its 3,000 medieval, Renaissance and early Baroque works include Johann Melchior Dinglinger's 18th-century jewel-encrusted figurines titled "Court of the Grand Moghul of Delhi" and the Golden Coffee Set.
"Dresden is getting back one of the highlights that made it the symbol of Baroque beauty," Saxony state premier Georg Milbradt said of the museum, which is located in the city's Residenzschloss royal palace.
The Green Vault was opened in 1723 by Saxon Elector and Polish King August II the Strong. Three of its eight rooms were destroyed in World War II bombing which leveled the city known as Florence on the Elbe.
Most of its treasures had already been put in storage at the time but they were taken back to the Soviet Union by the Red Army near the end of the war. They only returned to Dresden at the end of the 1950s.
The works were housed for the last 30 years in the Albertinum fine arts museum, although part of the collection moved into the so-called New Green Vault, a modern construction, in September 2004.
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AFPEntertainment-Germany-museum
AFP 281518 GMT 03 06
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