This tour is the first joint-venture between the FHS and Mobile - Gesellschaft der Freunde von Mobeln und Raumkunst e.V. and is co-led by Dr Melanie Doderer Winkler and Dr Henriette Graf. The visit is organised around a specially arranaged study day at the Museum of Lacquer Art Munster (owned by BASF) and their upcoming exhibition 'Gerard Dagly 1660-1715 and the Berlin Court workshop' (19 April to 26 July).

2015 is the 300th anniversary of the death of this outstanding Flemish artist, who found in 1686 the first European court workshop for lacquer ware. Curated by the musuem's director, Dr Monika Kopplin, the exhibition brings together the most significant examples of Dagly's work and compares them to their Oriental prototypes. Objects have been loaned mainly from the collections of the Prussian Palaces and Garden Foundation Berlin-Brandenburg, the Decorative Arts Museum Berlin and the Administration of Palaces and Gardens in Hesse.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue of works by Dagly and including restoration case-studies and essays which shed new light on the historical and material context of lacquer furniture in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.

In addition to the Dagly study day, visits are planned to include Schloss Benrath, Schloss Anholt as well as other private collections, museums and workshops in the region.