One of the largest cat art exhibitions in Germany is set to become a permanent visitor attraction in the manor at Bösenbrunn. Renate Oeser has done a great deal to ensure that the project succeeds.

There are an unbelievable number of cats at the manor in Bösenbrunn: about 16,000 items are gradually taking their place in the rooms there on the first floor. The number is increasing all the time through legacies. They are made of all kinds of conceivable materials, like ceramics, china, glass, wood, metal or fabrics. Some of them are hand-worked individual items, some of them industrially produced goods. Renate Oeser, the initiator and person behind the whole idea, says, “Most of the items in the collection come from the Cat Museum Support Group in Frankfurt/Main. Its members collected cat art from all over the world for many years. When this association disbanded because the members were so old, we were able to take over the stocks.”

She adds, “This led to the founding of the Bösenbrunn Manor Support Group. It has set itself the goal of using this unique collection to reawaken public interest in this wonderful, Baroque manor and save it, although it is structurally in a very poor state.

It goes without saying that the financial challenge of renovating this kind of building dating from 1727 is enormous. For structural reasons, it is only possible to open the first floor six times a year to display several thousands of cats.

A unique cat cafe on the ground floor invites visitors to call in when the exhibition is open; it features 600 pictures of cats, including many originals and some from the collection. Renate Oeser comments,

“I’m a real cat-lover; I’ve had many cats and a cat art collection too. That’s why I’m so committed to the manor project personally.”  

The 87-year-old also admits that, in terms of her career, her great love was for music and the theatre. As a graduate opera director, she stage-managed more than 100 operas at various engagements and nine operas on East German television in the past. She arrived in the Vogtland region with her husband as long ago as 1970.

“We found a farmhouse and fell in love with it and extended it. The fact that my love for the Vogtland region would one day extend to a manor and 16,000 cats was rather unexpected.”

The Bösenbrunn Manor Support Group centred around its chairperson Christian Klemet is not giving up hope of receiving huge financial assistance to complete the necessary renovation work. Renate Oeser says, “My dream would be to attract guests from all over Germany in future so that busloads of visitors bringing some of the 16 million cat-owners in our country will one day stop here too.”