I made a beeline for this museum once I had settled into Munich. Wow oh wow, it did not disappoint!

Above, the south facade of the museum.

Before I post on the collection and what caught my eye and imagination, I want to give a little context about this great Bavarian museum. Wikipedia to the rescue as always.

And thanks to Google, you can take a wonderful virtual tour of the museum from your own home. https://artsandculture.google.com/u/0/partner/alte-pinakothek?hl=en

The Alte Pinakothek is an art museum located in the Kunstareal area in Munich It is one of the oldest galleries in the world and houses a significant collection of Old Master paintings. The name Alte (Old) Pinakothek refers to the time period covered by the collection—from the 14th to the 18th century. The Neue Pinakothek, re-built in 1981, covers 19th-century art, and Pinakothek der Moderne, opened in 2002, exhibits modern art. All three galleries are part of the Bavarian State Painting Collections, an organization of the Free state of Bavaria.

King Ludwig I of Bavaria ordered Leo von Klenze to erect a new building for the gallery for the Wittelsbach collection in 1826. When built, the Alte Pinakothek was the largest museum in the world and structurally and conceptually advanced through the convenient accommodation of skylights for the galleries. Even the Neo-Renaissance exterior of the Pinakothek clearly stands out from the castle-like museum type common in the early 19th century. It is closely associated with the function and structure of the building as a museum. Very modern in its day, the building became exemplary for museum buildings in Germany and in Europe after its inauguration in 1836, and thus became a model for new galleries like the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, and galleries in Rome, Brussels and Kassel.

The museum building was severely damaged by bombing in World War II but was reconstructed and reopened to the public on 7 June 1957. Director Ernst Buckner oversaw the rebuilding project, ensuring that the building remained true to its original architecture. The ornate, pre-war interior, including the large loggia facing the south façade in the upper floor, was not restored.

A new wall covering system was created in 2008 for the rooms on the upper floor of the museum with a woven and dyed silk from Lyon. The new color scheme of green and red draws on the design of the rooms dating back to the time of construction of the museum, and was predominant until the 20th century. Already for King Ludwig I and his architect Leo von Klenze, the use of a wall covering alternately in red and green represented the continuation of a tradition that dates back to the exhibition of the old masters of the late 16th century in many of the major art galleries of Europe (Florence, London, Madrid, St. Petersburg, Paris, Vienna).

The Wittelsbach collection was begun by Duke Wilhelm IV (1508–1550) who ordered important contemporary painters to create several history paintings, including The Battle of Alexander at Issus of Albrecht Altdorfer. Elector Maximilian I (1597–1651) commissioned in 1616 four hunt paintings from Peter Paul Rubens and acquired many other paintings, especially the work of Albrecht Dürer. He even obtained The Four Apostles in the year 1627 due to pressure on the Nuremberg city fathers. A few years later however 21 paintings were confiscated and moved to Sweden during the occupation of Munich in the Thirty Years war. Maximilian’s grandson Maximilian II Emanuel (1679–1726) purchased a large number of Dutch and Flemish paintings when he was Governor of the Spanish Netherlands. He bought, for example, in 1698 from Gisbert van Colen 12 pictures of Peter Paul Rubens and 13 of Van Dyck, with the pictures of Rubens from the personal estate of the artist which the artist had never intended for to be sold.

The Elector’s cousin, Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine (1690–1716), collected Netherlandish paintings. He ordered from Peter Paul Rubens The Big Last Judgment and received Raphael’s Canigiani Holy Family as a dowry of his wife. Charles Theodore, Elector of Bavaria (1742–1799) had a strong preference for Netherlandish paintings as well, among other paintings he acquired Rembrandt’s The Holy Family. By the late 18th century, a large number of the paintings were displayed in Schleissheim Palace, and accessible to the public.

After the reunion of Bavaria and the Electorate of the Palatinate in 1777, the galleries of Mannheim, Düsseldorf and Zweibrücken were moved to Munich, in part to protect the collections during the wars which followed the French revolution. At least 72 paintings including The Battle of Alexander at Issus were taken to Paris in 1800 by the invading armies of Napoleon I; Napoleon was a noted admirer of Alexander the Great. The Louvre held it until 1804, when Napoleon declared himself Emperor of France and took it for his own use. When the Prussians captured the Château de Saint-Cloud in 1814 as part of the War of the Sixth Coalition, they supposedly found the painting hanging in Napoleon’s bathroom.Most of the paintings have not been returned.

With the secularisation many paintings from churches and former monasteries entered into state hands. King Ludwig I of Bavaria collected especially Early German and Early Dutch paintings but also masterpieces of the Italian renaissance. In 1827 he acquired the collection Boisserée with 216 Old German and Old Dutch masters; in 1828, the king managed to also purchase the collection of the Prince Wallerstein, with 219 Upper German and Upper Swabian paintings. In 1838 Johann Georg von Dillis issued the first catalogue.

Durer’s Self-Portrait

After the times of King Ludwig I the acquisitions almost ended. Only from 1875 the directors Franz von Reber and Hugo von Tschudi secured important new acquisitions, such as the Madonna of the Carnation of Leonardo da Vinci and The Disrobing of Christ of El Greco.

The predilection of the Wittelsbach rulers for some painters made the collection quite strong in those areas but neglected others. Since the 1960s the Pinakothek has filled some of these gaps: for example, a deficit of 18th-century paintings was addressed by the integration into the collection of works loaned from two Bavarian banks. Among these paintings were Nicolas Lancret’s The Bird Cage and François Boucher’s Madame Pompadour.

In April 1988, the serial vandal Hans-Joachim Bohlmann splashed acid on three paintings by Albrecht Dürer, namely Lamentation for Christ, Paumgartner Altar and Mater Dolarosa inflicting damage estimated at 35 million euros. In 1990 Dierick Bouts’ Ecce agnus dei was acquired.

On 5 August 2014, the museum rejected a request by a descendant of the banker Carl Hagen for the repatriation of Jacob Ochtervelt’s Das Zitronenscheibchen (The Lemon Slice) on the grounds that it had been unlawfully acquired as a result of Nazi persecution. An investigation by the museum established that it had been lawfully purchased at the time for a fair price and that the Hagen family’s interest extended only to a security on the painting.

The museum is under the supervision of the Bavarian State Painting Collections which also owns an expanded collection of several thousand European paintings from the 13th to 18th centuries. Especially its collection of Early Italian, Old German, Old Dutch and Flemish paintings is one of the most important in the world.

More than 800 of these paintings are exhibited at the Old Pinakothek. Due to limited space in the building, some associated galleries throughout Bavaria such as the baroque galleries in Schleissheim Palace and Neuburg Palace additionally have works by the Old Masters on display.

German paintings 14th–17th century:
The Alte Pinakothek comes with the most comprehensive collection of German Old Masters worldwide

Early Netherlandish paintings 15th–16th century:
One of the most impressive collections worldwide especially for Early Netherlandish paintings

Dutch paintings 17th–18th century:
Due to the passion of the Wittelsbach rulers this section contains numerous exquisite paintings.

Flemish paintings 16th–18th century:
The collection contains masterpieces of these painters

Italian paintings 13th–18th century:
The Italian Gothic paintings are the oldest of the gallery and then all Schools of Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting are represented

French paintings 16th–18th century:
In spite of the close relationship of the Wittelsbachs to France it is the second smallest section of the collections

Spanish paintings, 16th–18th century:
Though this is the smallest section, all major masters are represented

I’ll be posting about the incredible collections housed at the Bode soon, but I wanted to provide a little background on this fabulous museum.

As is often the case, I turned to Wikipedia for a succinct summary of the Bode Museum.

The Bode Museum, formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (Emperor Frederick Museum), is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of German Emperor William II according to plans by Ernst von Ihne in Baroque Revival style. The building’s front square featured a memorial to German Emperor Frederick III, which was destroyed by the East German authorities. Currently, the Bode-Museum is home to the Skulpturensammlung, the Museum für Byzantinische Kunst and the Münzkabinett (sculpture, coins and medals, and Byzantine art). As part of the Museum Island complex, the Bode-Museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 because of its outstanding architecture and testimony to the development of museums as a cultural phenomenon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Again, not to mention it’s incredible collections.

Originally called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum after Emperor Frederick III, the museum was renamed in honor of its first curator, Wilhelm von Bode, in 1956.

During World War II, portions of the collection were stored in an antiaircraft tower called the Flakturm Friedrichshain for safe keeping. In May 1945, several fires destroyed some of the collections. In total, more than 400 paintings and about 300 sculptures were lost due to looting during the fire or destroyed in the fire itself.

The museum was closed for renovation from 1997 and was reopened on 18 October 2006, after a €156 million refurbishment. True to the ethos of its founding director, Wilhelm von Bode, who believed in mixing art collections, it is now the home for a collection of sculptures, Byzantine art, and coins and medals. The presentation of the collections is both geographic and chronological, with the Byzantine and Gothic art of northern and southern Europe displayed separately on the museum’s first floor and a similar regional division of Renaissance and Baroque art on its second floor.

The sculpture collection displays artwork of the Christian Orient (with an emphasis on Coptic Egypt), sculptures and mosaics from Byzantium and Ravenna, sculptures of the Middle Ages, the Italian Gothic, and the early Renaissance, including the controversial Flora attributed by Bode to Leonardo da Vinci but now widely argued to be a 19th-century work. Late German Gothic works are also represented by Tilman Riemenschneider, the south German Renaissance, and Prussian Baroque art up to the 18th century. In the future selected works of the Gemäldegalerie will be integrated into the sculpture collection. This is reminiscent of William von Bode’s concept of “style rooms,” in which sculptures, paintings, and crafts are viewed together, as was usual in upper middle-class private collections.

The Münzkabinett (“coin cabinet”) is one of the world’s largest numismatic collections. Its range spans from the beginning of minting in the 7th century BC in Asia Minor up to the present day. With approximately 500,000 items, the collection is a unique archive for historical research, while its medal collection also makes it an important art exhibition.

Writing in The Financial Times on the occasion on the museum’s reopening in 2006, Neil MacGregor, director of the British Museum, hailed “the most comprehensive display of European sculpture anywhere.” He added: “It is no exaggeration to say that in the new Bode Museum, Europe will be able for the first time to read its history — aesthetic and religious, intellectual and political — in a three-dimensional form.”

There are probably a hundred videos on Munich on Youtube, but of the ones I watched, this one was best. It’s a good introduction if you, like me, have never been.

I’ve loved my time in Berlin, much more than I ever dreamed I would. For starters, it’s 20 degrees cooler than Florence right now and that’s really all I wanted when I came here. But, it was soooooo much more!

But, I want to see more and decided to spend some time in Munich, also for the first time. So I purchased a train ticket on the ICE, the fast train, from Berlin to Munich and off I went.

The Berlin central train station is a marvel. It’s efficient, clean, crazy busy.

Later, the scenery looked like the video above. I’m in Munich now and will be posting it soon! Guten tag!

After visiting the Berlin Cathedral and the Altes Museum on Museum Island in Berlin, I was faced with a dilemma. There were still 3 other museums I wanted to visit. Which one should I go to next? Decisions, decisions!

Ultimately, I decided to try the Bode Museum next. I knew nothing about it nor its collections and I typically don’t read up about these places until after I’ve visited them. Unless it’s the Louvre. There I need as much advance prep as possible not to be overwhelmed, and I’m still utterly overwhelmed.

I essentially knew that the Bode was named after a former director/curator and I liked that idea, since I have been an art museum curator.

But I knew nothing of the wonders that awaited me.

After the Altes Museum with its collections of ancient art, I knew at first glance that I was encountering a whole different kettle of fish. We are in Europe! We are in the Middle Ages through the Renaissance and things are going to get multi-cultural!

You probably can imagine with my background that I have looked at a lot of religious art. So what I took pictures of on this day were objects that were unusual to me, things I hadn’t seen a million times before.

This polychromed and gilded statue was beautiful and I loved the addition of the shoes to tell us what the queen of heaven would wear in the minds of a 13th century French artisan.

Never in my life have I seen a religious statue of Christ and St. John the Evangelist with John nearly breaking his neck to lean on Christ’s shoulder. I’ve never seen any medieval sculpture in this form. I found it weird and quite wonderful!

And I appreciated the label in English telling me that this kind of work was common in German convents around 1300. This is why I go to museums. To learn and be dazzled.

I’ve seen a thousand statues of Mary holding the Christ child. But, I’ve never seen a sculpture of a royal woman holding an architectural model before.

Now this next work is really interesting. In the black and white photo, we see a very awkward Pieta. You know I’ve seen a million of this subject. But never one like this with Christ with rigor mortis?!

Tragically, what survives from the sculptural group are only the 2 heads, of Mary and of Christ. And what happened to the rest of it? WWII. Destruction. It’s a reminder, like all of Berlin, that there’s a frightening history here. Sad, tragic, hideous. And that’s the human loss. The artistic loss is unfortunate. Wrought by meglomaniac Hitler and his band. The feeling is everywhere here, at least for me. I wonder if others feel it as much? Have you been to Germany? What are your feelings?

The sculpture below is of a type known in Italy as the Misericordia, where the Virgin Mary shelters the elect in her cloak. Often it is children represented in the folds of her garment. But, this one has a distinctly northern look to the faces. Unusual for my eyes.

I was captivated by the altarpieces found at the Bode. Again the northern countenance make perfect sense but are unusual and delightful to my eyes trained in Italy.

I’ve never, ever seen a statue of Christ riding a donkey. I’ve seen paintings of people riding donkeys, including the Virgin Mary and even Cosimo di Medici on a mule. But, again, this was different and fascinating to me! Arranged on it’s base, it seems obvious that the statue was meant to be carried at shoulder height in processions.

The scene of the Annunciation is my very favorite subject matter in religious art. Here is one part of such a sculptural group; the archangel Gabriel is announcing that Mary is to bear Christ. Sadly, the statue of Mary seems to be lost.

You can probably discern that I’m in love with the Bode and you can guess that I’ll be back with more posts soon!

I had heard that the Altes Museum’s collection of Etruscan art was the largest outside of Tuscany. I found that hard to believe before I went. Now, I am a believer.

I didn’t spend a huge amount of time taking pictures, because I live in Tuscany most of the time and am quite familiar with the art of Etruria. I love it. But, I was impressed with the didactic information available in Berlin in English. Very impressive. The art of museology is superlative in Berlin!

What follows is a small sampling of the incredible Roman collection at the Altes. It is as significant in its holdings as the ancient Greek collection, but I was on my 3rd hour and flagging. I’d love to return one day and start my visit with the Roman art.

The hole in her head indicates a section of hair that has been lost.

And, from the sublime to the ridiculous, as I was leaving this great museum, I saw a couple of nods to the present!

A continuation of Ancient Greek art. Incredible collection here in Berlin!

Here I continue a look at the ancient Greek collections.

The next 3 photos show a collection of toys:

The next, short statue, is quite arresting.

And the pottery!

Below, the gorgeous “Berlin Dancer.”

And the jewelry!

Tanagra Figurines are one of my favorite aspects of Greek art.

The name alone draws you in, right!?

In English the name means the pleasure garden. It is the green space that fronts both the Altes Museum and Berlin Cathedral on Museum Island in Berlin

The Lustgarten is a park on Museum Island which, at various times in its history, has been used as a public park, a parade ground, and a place for mass rallies.

The area of the Lustgarten was originally developed in the 16th century as a kitchen garden attached to the palace which was then the residence of the Elector of Brandenburg. This area was the core of the later Kingdom of Prussia.  After the devastation of Germany during the The 30 Years War, Berlin was redeveloped by Friedrich Wilhelm (the Great Elector) and his Dutch wife, Luise Henriette of Nassau. It was Luise, with the assistance of a military engineer Johann Mauritz and a landscape gardener Michael Hanff, who, in 1646, converted the former kitchen garden into a formal garden, with fountains and geometric paths, and gave it its current name, Pleasure Garden.

In 1713, Friedrich Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and set about converting Prussia into a militarised state. He ripped out his grandmother’s garden and converted the Lustgarten into a sand-covered parade ground. In 1790, Friedrich Wilhelm II allowed the Lustgarten to be turned back into a park, but during French occupation of Berlin in 1806 Napoleon again drilled troops there.

In the early 19th century, the enlarged and increasingly wealthy Kingdom of Prussia undertook major redevelopments of central Berlin. A large, new classical building, the Altes Museum, was built at the north-western end of the Lustgarten and between 1826 and 1829 the garten was redesigned by Peter Joseph Lenne, with formal paths dividing the park into 6 sectors. A 13-metre high fountain in the centre, operated by a steam engine, was one of the marvels of the age. Between 1894 and 1905, the old Protestant church on the northern side of the park was replaced by a much larger building, the Berlin Cathedral (Berliner Dom), designed by Julius Carl Raschdorff.

During the years of the Weimar Republic, the Lustgarten was frequently used for political demonstrations. The Socialists and Communists held frequent rallies there. In August 1921, 500,000 people demonstrated against right-wing extremist violence. After the murder of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, in 1922, 250,000 protested in the Lustgarten. On 7 February 1933, 200,000 people demonstrated against the new Nazi Party regime of Hitler; shortly afterwards public opposition to the regime was banned. Under the Nazis, the Lustgarten was converted into a site for mass rallies. In 1934, it was paved over. Hitler addressed mass rallies of up to a million people there.

By the end of WWII in the year 1945, the Lustgarten was a bomb-pitted wasteland. A movement to restore the Lustgarten to its earlier role as a park began once Germany was reunified in 1990. In 1997, the Berlin Senate  commissioned the landscape architect Hans Loidl to redesign the area in the spirit of Lenné’s design and construction work began in 1998. The Lustgarten now features fountains and is once again a park in the heart of a reunited Berlin.