The manor house (german Herrenhaus) of the Landgut (Estate) Holzdorf was originally built in the early 18th century, then owned by the Weitzenberg family – direct descendants of Lucas Cranach the Elder. The Estate was at its zenith in the 1920s and 30s when it was owned by the Mannheim based industrialist Dr. Otto Krebs. He extended the Estate as well as the buildings, specifically the manor house received a magnificent and representative interior design. It served as the home of his art collection of important french impressionists. Additionally the Frankfurt based garden architect Franz Wirtz created a landscape park of early modernity with numerous sculptures, pavillons and a bathing garden.
Holzdorf lies southwest of the german cultural hotspot Weimar and was incorporated into the city in 1994. The art collection was taken to Soviet Russia after world war II and is now occassionally shown at the Eremitage in St. Petersburg, its new home. Most of the sculptures ended up at the GDR national gallery, after that at the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Prussian Art Foundation) and then back at Otto Krebs descendants, who auctioned parts of it meanwhile.
