The Kupferstichkabinett, or Museum of Prints and Drawings, is a
prints museum in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
,
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
. It is part of the
Berlin State Museums
The Berlin State Museums (german: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin) are a group of institutions in Berlin, Germany, comprising seventeen museums in five clusters, several research institutes, libraries, and supporting facilities. They are overseen ...
, and is located in the
Kulturforum
The Kulturforum ( en, Cultural Forum) is a collection of cultural buildings in Berlin. It was built up in the 1950s and 1960s at the edge of West Berlin, after most of the once unified city's cultural assets had been lost behind the Berlin Wal ...
on
Potsdamer Platz
Potsdamer Platz (, ''Potsdam Square'') is a public square and traffic intersection in the center of Berlin, Germany, lying about south of the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag (German Parliament Building), and close to the southeast corn ...
. It is the largest museum of
graphic art
A category of fine art, graphic art covers a broad range of visual artistic expression, typically two-dimensional, i.e. produced on a flat surface. in Germany,
[Museum of Prints and Drawings]
with more than 500,000
prints and around 110,000 individual works on paper (drawings,
pastels,
watercolour
Watercolor (American English) or watercolour (British English; see spelling differences), also ''aquarelle'' (; from Italian diminutive of Latin ''aqua'' "water"), is a painting method”Watercolor may be as old as art itself, going back to t ...
s,
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
sketches).
History
The Kupferstichkabinett was officially founded in 1831, with a collection of drawings and watercolours acquired by
Frederick William I in 1652 at its core.
[Kupferstichkabinett]
State of Berlin. It was first housed in the
Altes Museum
The Altes Museum (English: ''Old Museum'') is a listed building on the Museum Island in the historic centre of Berlin. Built from 1825 to 1830 by order of King Frederick William III of Prussia according to plans by Karl Friedrich Schinkel, it i ...
beside the collections of
and
Classical sculpture from ancient Greece and Rome, as exemplars of "High Art". The collection grew throughout the 19th and 20th centuries, with the addition of Medieval, Renaissance and later works, including drawings by
Albrecht Dürer and
Matthias Grünewald
Matthias Grünewald ( – 31 August 1528) was a German Renaissance painter of religious works who ignored Renaissance classicism to continue the style of late medieval Central European art into the 16th century. His first name is also given ...
,
Sandro Botticelli
Alessandro di Mariano di Vanni Filipepi ( – May 17, 1510), known as Sandro Botticelli (, ), was an Italian Renaissance painting, Italian painter of the Early Renaissance. Botticelli's posthumous reputation suffered until the late 19th cent ...
's illustrations of
Dante
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian people, Italian Italian poetry, poet, writer and philosopher. His ''Divine Comedy'', origin ...
's ''
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature ...
'' (purchased in 1882), and the estate of
Adolph Menzel
Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel (8 December 18159 February 1905) was a German Realist artist noted for drawings, etchings, and paintings. Along with Caspar David Friedrich, he is considered one of the two most prominent German painters of t ...
.
Prominent members of former staff include
Max Lehrs
Max Lehrs (24 June 1855, in Berlin – 12 November 1938, in Dresden) was a German art historian and long-time director of the Dresden Kupferstichskabinett, 1896–1904, and 1908–24, with the intervening as director in Berlin. He is es ...
.
In 1986 the Kupferstichkabinett took over the graphics collection of the
National Gallery of Berlin
The National Gallery (german: Nationalgalerie) in Berlin, Germany, is a museum for art of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. It is part of the Berlin State Museums. From the Alte Nationalgalerie, which was built for it and opened in 1876, its exh ...
, whose emphasis was on 20th-century prints, including
Expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
works that the Nazis had classified as "
degenerate
Degeneracy, degenerate, or degeneration may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Degenerate (album), ''Degenerate'' (album), a 2010 album by the British band Trigger the Bloodshed
* Degenerate art, a term adopted in the 1920s by the Nazi Party i ...
" and confiscated. In 1994 it opened in a new building in the Kulturforum, reuniting the parts of the collection that had been split between
East
East or Orient is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth.
Etymology
As in other languages, the word is formed from the fac ...
and
West Berlin
West Berlin (german: Berlin (West) or , ) was a political enclave which comprised the western part of Berlin during the years of the Cold War. Although West Berlin was de jure not part of West Germany, lacked any sovereignty, and was under mi ...
together with the National Gallery's collection.
Collection
The emphasis is on European drawings and printed graphics from the Middle Ages to the present, as well as
illuminated manuscripts
An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared document where the text is often supplemented with flourishes such as borders and miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Church for prayers, liturgical services and psalms, the ...
, sketchbooks, topographical drawings and printing plates. The older artists include
Dürer,
Grünewald,
Botticelli and Menzel, as well as
Altdorfer,
Bosch,
Bruegel,
Chodowiecki,
Friedrich,
Mantegna,
Rembrandt,
Schinkel, and
Tiepolo
Giovanni Battista Tiepolo ( , ; March 5, 1696 – March 27, 1770), also known as Giambattista (or Gianbattista) Tiepolo, was an Italian painter and printmaker from the Republic of Venice who painted in the Rococo style, considered an import ...
. More recent artists include
Kirchner,
Munch and
Picasso,
Pop Artists (
Warhol,
Hamilton,
Johns,
Stella)
conceptual art
Conceptual art, also referred to as conceptualism, is art in which the concept(s) or idea(s) involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic, technical, and material concerns. Some works of conceptual art, sometimes called insta ...
ists,
minimalists, and contemporary artists working in Berlin.
The collection of the Kupferstichkabinett also includes
Friedrich Gilly's plan for a monument to Frederick II of Prussia from 1796.
Some of the works on paper are stored in other Berlin collections that have a relevant theme, such as the
Ethnological
Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology). ...
and
Asian Art
The history of Asian art includes a vast range of arts from various cultures, regions, and religions across the continent of Asia. The major regions of Asia include Central, East, South, Southeast, and West Asia.
Central Asian art primarily c ...
Museums, the Art Library, and the
Scharf-Gerstenberg Collection. The works in the Kupferstichkabinett cannot be permanently displayed, due to the size of the collection and the air- and light-sensitivity of works on paper; however, the museum holds regular temporary exhibitions.
The museum's patrons primarily include the Graphische Gesellschaft zu Berlin - Vereinigung der Freunde des Kupferstichkabinetts e. V. (''Berlin Graphic Society - Association of Friends of the Museum of Prints and Drawings''). The association has existed since 1997, it supports the expansion of the collection, arranges donations and acquires individual works according to the recommendations of the director of the Kupferstichkabinett.
Other activities
The Kupferstichkabinett carries out research and
conservation
Conservation is the preservation or efficient use of resources, or the conservation of various quantities under physical laws.
Conservation may also refer to:
Environment and natural resources
* Nature conservation, the protection and managem ...
activities and has its own ''Conservation Advisory Council''. Particular candidates for preservation include the bound handwritten works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance, large 19th-century cartoons (e.g. by
Peter von Cornelius
Peter von Cornelius (23 September 1783, Düsseldorf – 6 March 1867, Berlin) was a German painter; one of the main representatives of the Nazarene movement.
Life
Early years
Cornelius was born in Düsseldorf. From the age of twelve he attend ...
), and technically complex contemporary works. Other subjects of research include
silverpoint drawings and drawings by Grünewald. There is also a continually updated index of
watermark
A watermark is an identifying image or pattern in paper that appears as various shades of lightness/darkness when viewed by transmitted light (or when viewed by reflected light, atop a dark background), caused by thickness or density variations ...
s to assist in the dating of works on paper.
Collection - Conservation
See also
*'' Divine Comedy illustrated by Botticelli''
Notes
Further reading
*Bevers, Holm: ''Rembrandt - die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett : kritischer Katalog ; begleitet von der Ausstellung Rembrandt. Der Zeichner, Kupferstichkabinett - Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, 4. August bis 5. November 2006'', Verlag Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern 2006.
*Bevers, Holm: ''Zeichnungen der Rembrandtschule im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett : kritischer Katalog'', mit einem Beitrag von Georg Josef Dietz und Antje Penz sowie 37 Illustrationen, Verlag Sandstein Kommunikation GmbH, Dresden 2018.
*Dückers, Alexander (editor): ''Das Berliner Kupferstichkabinett.'' Akademie, 1994. .
* Dückers, Alexander (Hrsg.) / Achenbach, Sigrid: ''Das Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, ein Handbuch zur Sammlung ; das Handbuch erscheint aus Anlass der Ausstellung Vereint im Neuen Haus - Meisterwerke aus Zehn Jahrhunderten im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett'', herausgegeben von den Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1994, Akademie Verlag, Berlin 1994. (in German)
* Giesecke, Alber: ''Handzeichnungen venezianischer Meister des 18. Jahrhunderts im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett.'' Die Kunstwelt, Deutsche Zeitschrift für die bildende Kunst, Jg. 1912/1913, S. 265–278.
Website
External links
Homepage of the Kupferstichkabinett
Kupferstichkabinett Berlin
within Google Arts & Culture
*
{{Authority control
Museums in Berlin
Art museums and galleries in Germany
Art museums established in 1831
1831 establishments in Prussia
Berlin State Museums