The International Ceramics Museum was opened in April 1990 as a branch of Die Neue Sammlung and is housed in the so called Waldsassener Kasten,a former Baroque monastery that was redeveloped in an exemplary manner specifically for this purpose. It is financed by the town of Weiden and the Free State of Bavaria. The museum was founded in the wake of the museum development program passed by the Bavarian Government in 1979.

The totally new concept devised by Die Neue Sammlung envisages not only alternating exhibitions staged by all the Bavarian state museums with collections of ceramics, but also temporary special exhibitions that address various topics. Spread over a surface area of some 1,000 square meters on two floors, there are currently on show ceramic objects covering eight centuries from three Munich State Museums, namely the Museum for Prehistory and Early History, the State Museum of Egyptian Art, and Die Neue Sammlung itself. The Seltmann Collection was donated in 1994: Chinese porcelain from the Qing Dynasty. As the only state branchmuseum in Bavaria, Weiden thus boasts its very own outstanding collection of articles. Each of the collections on display in Weiden creates an overall entity, whose particular theme is addressed only here.

Die Neue Sammlung provides in the Museum an opportunity to view its extensive collection of 19th, 20th and 21st century ceramics. Around 500 examples of different techniques – from simple earthenware, via Fayence, stoneware, creamware through to porcelain bear witness to the quality andvariety of the collection. Berlin laboratory vessels and English fireplace fittings provide illustrations of technical ceramics. In chronological order three rooms contrast developments in Europe with those in Germany. There are currently on display outstanding works by almost all the major manufacturers in the field of crockery design, as well as examples of the development of artistic ceramics, but also predominantly anonymous, traditional, rural earthenware from 1900 through to the present day. Besides this there are being showcased selections from various donations, and collections from antique Greek and Roman pottery to ceramics from Africa, South America and Asia.