Sander Estate Project

Following the passing of Evamarie Sander (1928–2023) in 2023, her estate, both scientific and personal, was transferred to the University of Tübingen. Sander was the university's first female professor of phytopathology and had taught and conducted research there for many years.

During her lifetime, she had already decided to bequeath her possessions to the university, specifically to the MUT. The estate includes furniture, decorative and functional objects, decorations, scientific and personal literature, correspondence, and photographs. Together, these items document both an academic career and aspects of bourgeois life, living, and everyday culture.

At the Museum of the University of Tübingen MUT, the collection is listed as an independent entity under the following title:

'Sander Collection. Collection of cultural objects and writings, both handwritten and printed, from the life, home and household culture of a bourgeois family, in both individual copies and as an ensemble, dating from 1738 to the present day.'

To professionally catalogue these countless objects as an independent collection, a project to inventory and catalogue the estate has been underway since September 2024. Financed by the Evamarie Sander Foundation, the project has already enabled several positions to be established at the Museum of the University of Tübingen and the University Archives of Tübingen. 

The project began at the former residence in Unterjesingen. Here, the estate was examined and sorted for the first time. Once the inventory had been moved to the new MUT collection centre, systematic processing began, involving conservation storage, digital recording in the TMS museum database and (family) historical classification.

The estate is being catalogued in close collaboration with several institutions, including the University of Tübingen's University Archives, Art Collection, Department of Musicology and Department of Empirical Cultural Studies (EKW). These collaborations facilitate an interdisciplinary approach, which is necessary to do justice to the estate's thematic breadth and material diversity.

One of the project's aims is to make the collection accessible for research, teaching and the public. To this end, the project will be integrated into university teaching. Over two semesters, practical seminars will accompany the cataloguing work, giving students insights into museum practice and interdisciplinary collaboration. The seminars will also address the management of estates and associated challenges, decision-making processes and obstacles, covering everything from evaluation, selection and conservation to contextualisation and communication.

Poster presentation

The estate was presented for the first time on a poster entitled ‘On the Way – The Evamarie Sander Foundation’ at the 14th collection conference, which took place from October 5th to 7th, 2023, at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.
 

Treasure of the Month

Part of the estate has already been made available to the public. In August 2024, the virus models created and used by Evamarie Sander were displayed as part of the 'Treasure of the Month' series organised by the University Archives and Library. 

Lecture

The project has already been presented in specialist discourse. At the 16th Annual Conference for University Collections, which took place in Berlin from Ocotber 9th to 11th, 2025, a lecture entitled 'Unwanted and unloved? – Collections from donations and bequests using the example of Evamarie Sander's house inheritance' was given on the topic of 'Is collecting still relevant today?'.

Display cases at the Mensa

During the biannual cross-sectional exhibition of the MUT in the Wilhelmstraße canteen display cases in the winter semester of 2025/26, objects from the Sander Collection were presented. The University of Tübingen's painting collection displayed Prof Sander's paintings from the professors' gallery.