The Kupferstich-Kabinett (English: Collection of Prints, Drawings and Photographs) is part of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen (State Art Collections) of Dresden, Germany. Since 2004 it has been located in

Dresden Castle Dresden Castle or Royal Palace (german: Dresdner Residenzschloss or ) is one of the oldest buildings in Dresden, Germany. For almost 400 years, it was the residence of the electors (1547–1806) and kings (1806–1918) of Saxony from the Alber ...

.Kupferstich-Kabinett
Information and history from the Dresden and Saxony tourist website.

History

Like many of Dresden's notable collections, this

print room A print room is a room in an art gallery or museum where a collection of old master and modern prints, usually together with drawings, watercolours, and photographs, are held and viewed. A further meaning is a room decorated by pasting prints ...

traces its origins to the

Prince-electors of Saxony The prince-electors (german: Kurfürst pl. , cz, Kurfiřt, la, Princeps Elector), or electors for short, were the members of the electoral college that elected the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. From the 13th century onwards, the prince ...

. The art chamber of the House of Wettin, established around 1560, became an independent museum of prints and drawings in 1720.Zur Vorgeschichte des Dresdner Kupferstich-Kabinetts zwischen 1560 und 1738
Christian Melzer, ''Journal of the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art'', 0004. 21 June 2010. Retrieved 8 September 2010. The collection was expanded in the following centuries. It now describes itself as the oldest museum of graphic arts in the German-speaking world. Because most items had been evacuated to

Schloss Weesenstein Schloss Weesenstein is a ''Schloss'' located in , a small village, part of Müglitztal in the Müglitz river valley, around south of Dohna in Saxony, Germany. History A castle was erected here sometime around 1200, built with the purpose of de ...

in the early stages of World War II, the collection was saved from the

bombing of Dresden The bombing of Dresden was a joint British and American aerial bombing attack on the city of Dresden, the capital of the German state of Saxony, during World War II. In four raids between 13 and 15 February 1945, 772 heavy bombers of the Ro ...

in February 1945. War-time losses were still high; around 50,000 items are still missing. Most of the exhibits were

looted Looting is the act of stealing, or the taking of goods by force, typically in the midst of a military, political, or other social crisis, such as war, natural disasters (where law and civil enforcement are temporarily ineffective), or rioting. ...

by the Soviet Union after the war and did not return to Dresden until the late 1950s, and some when they were put back on display in the

Albertinum The Albertinum () is a modern art museum. The sandstone-clad Renaissance Revival building is located on Brühl's Terrace in the historic center of Dresden, Germany. It is named after King Albert of Saxony. The Albertinum hosts the New Masters ...

Collection

The collection includes over 500,000 items, only a fraction of which can be exhibited. The most renowned artists in the collection include Lucas Cranach the Elder,

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer (; ; hu, Ajtósi Adalbert; 21 May 1471 – 6 April 1528),Müller, Peter O. (1993) ''Substantiv-Derivation in Den Schriften Albrecht Dürers'', Walter de Gruyter. . sometimes spelled in English as Durer (without an umlaut) or Due ...

Jan van Eyck Jan van Eyck ( , ; – July 9, 1441) was a painter active in Bruges who was one of the early innovators of what became known as Early Netherlandish painting, and one of the most significant representatives of Early Northern Renaissance art. Ac ...

Francisco de Goya Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes (; ; 30 March 174616 April 1828) was a Spanish romantic painter and printmaker. He is considered the most important Spanish artist of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His paintings, drawings, and e ...

, Hans Holbein the Younger, Michelangelo,

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (, ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), usually simply known as Rembrandt, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker and draughtsman. An innovative and prolific master in three media, he is generally consi ...

, and Rubens. There is also a large number of works by artists with strong connections to Dresden, such as

Caspar David Friedrich Caspar David Friedrich (5 September 1774 – 7 May 1840) was a 19th-century German Romantic landscape painter, generally considered the most important German artist of his generation. He is best known for his mid-period allegorical landscape ...

Ludwig Richter Adrian Ludwig Richter (September 28, 1803June 19, 1884) was a German painter and etcher, who was strongly influenced by Erhard and Chodowiecki. He was a representative of both Romanticism and Biedermeier styles. He was the most popular, and ...

, Georg Baselitz and

Johannes Heisig Johannes Heisig (born 23 April 1953 in Leipzig, East Germany) is a German Painting, painter and graphic artist. His work combines the tradition of German socialist realism with a subjective expressionism. He portrayed several famous German poli ...

. The collection of

Käthe Kollwitz Käthe Kollwitz ( born as Schmidt; 8 July 1867 – 22 April 1945) was a German artist who worked with painting, printmaking (including etching, lithography and woodcuts) and sculpture. Her most famous art cycles, including ''The Weavers'' a ...

was started in 1898 and now numbers over 200 works from her oeuvre of drawings and graphics. Besides the permanent exhibition, the Kupferstichkabinett also hosts regular special exhibitions featuring both its own works and those on loan from other notable museums.

Provenance research

The Kupferstich-Kabinett is one of several German museums that are researching the art collector

Carl Heumann Carl Heumann (19 March 1886 – 5 March 1945) was a German art collector persecuted by the Nazis because of his Jewish origins. Early life Carl Heumann was born on 19 March 1886 in Cologne to Jewish parents. He converted to Protestantism in 191 ...

(1886-1945), who after building in the 1920s and 1930s an important collection of prints of German and Austrian art of the 18th and 19th centuries, was persecuted because of his Jewish origins under the National Socialist regime.The Kupferstich-Kabinett approached Carl Heumann's descendants in order to find a just and fair solution regarding the artworks from his collection.

Notes and references

External links

Kupferstichkabinett Homepage
of the

Dresden State Art Collections Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden (, ''Dresden State Art Collections'') is a cultural institution in Dresden, Germany, owned by the State of Saxony. It is one of the most renowned and oldest museum institutions in the world, originating from the ...

Kupferstich-Kabinett, Dresden
within Google Arts & Culture * {{authority control Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden Printmaking Art museums established in 1720 1720 establishments in the Holy Roman Empire

History

Collection

Provenance research

See also

Notes and references

External links