The Wallraf–Richartz Museum (full name in German: ') is an art museum in

Cologne Cologne ( ; ; ) is the largest city of the States of Germany, German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the List of cities in Germany by population, fourth-most populous city of Germany with nearly 1.1 million inhabitants in the city pr ...

, Germany, with a collection of fine art from the

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

period to the early twentieth century. It is one of the three major

museums in Cologne This is a list of museums in Cologne, Germany: * Museums of the City of Cologne – (K) * The private museums – (P) * Museum of the university – (U) Museums Art * Museum Ludwig – Modern art; e.g. pop art and Russian avant-garde (K) * ...

History

The museum dates back to the year 1824, when the comprehensive collection of

medieval art The medieval art of the Western world covers a vast scope of time and place, with over 1000 years of art in Europe, and at certain periods in Western Asia and Northern Africa. It includes major art movements and periods, national and regional ar ...

from

Ferdinand Franz Wallraf Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (20 July 1748 - 18 March 1824) was a German botanist, mathematician, theologian, art collector and Roman Catholic priest. His collection formed the founding nucleus of the Wallraf–Richartz Museum. Biography He was the ...

came to the city of Cologne by inheritance. The first building was donated by

Johann Heinrich Richartz Johann Heinrich Richartz (15 May 1796 – 22 April 1861) was a German businessman and patron of the arts, best known as the main funder of the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum. Life Business Johann Heinrich Richartz took over his father's business i ...

, and the museum was opened in 1861, just after his death. The collection was regularly expanded by donations, especially the Haubrich collection of contemporary art in 1946. In 1976, on the occasion of the donation of Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig, the collection was split. The new

Museum Ludwig Museum Ludwig, located in Cologne, Germany, houses a collection of modern art. It includes works from Pop Art, Abstract and Surrealism, and has one of the largest Picasso collections in Europe. It holds many works by Andy Warhol and Roy Lic ...

took over the exhibition of the 20th century art. The current building from 2001, near the

Cologne City Hall The City Hall () is a historical building in Cologne, western Germany. It is located off Hohe Straße in the district of Innenstadt, and set between the two squares of Rathausplatz and Alter Markt. It houses part of the city government, includi ...

, was designed by

Oswald Mathias Ungers Oswald Mathias Ungers (12 July 1926 – 30 September 2007) was a German architect and architectural theorist, known for his rationalist designs and the use of cubic forms. Among his notable projects are museums in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Cologn ...

. It stands on the site of the ancient Roman temple to

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

in the

Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium was the Roman colony in the Rhineland from which the city of Cologne, now in Germany, developed. It was usually called ''Colonia'' (colony) and was the capital of the Roman province of Germania Inferior and ...

. Also in 2001, Swiss collector Gérard Corboud gave his

impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

and

postimpressionist Post-Impressionism (also spelled Postimpressionism) was a predominantly French art movement that developed roughly between 1886 and 1905, from the last Impressionist exhibition to the birth of Fauvism. Post-Impressionism emerged as a reaction ag ...

collection of over 170 works to the museum as a permanent loan. The museum then added "Fondation Corboud" to its name.

Collections

Gothic collection

The '' Madonna of the Rose Bower'' is among the Gothic paintings in the collection of the Wallraf–Richartz Museum. It was created by

Stefan Lochner Stefan Lochner (the ''Dombild Master'' or ''Master Stefan''; c. 1410 – late 1451) was a German painter working in the late International Gothic period. His paintings combine that era's tendency toward long flowing lines and brilliant colours ...

, who lived in Germany between 1410 and 1451, mainly working in Cologne. He is considered a late

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

painter. His work usually has a clean appearance, combining the Gothic attention to long flowing lines with brilliant colors and a

Flemish Flemish may refer to: * Flemish, adjective for Flanders, Belgium * Flemish region, one of the three regions of Belgium *Flemish Community, one of the three constitutionally defined language communities of Belgium * Flemish dialects, a Dutch dialec ...

influence of

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *American Realism *Classical Realism *Liter ...

and attention to detail. This painting is considered typical of his style. It was executed about 1450, and shows the Virgin and Child reposing in a blooming

rose A rose is either a woody perennial plant, perennial flowering plant of the genus ''Rosa'' (), in the family Rosaceae (), or the flower it bears. There are over three hundred Rose species, species and Garden roses, tens of thousands of cultivar ...

arbor that is attended by Lochner's characteristic, child

angel An angel is a spiritual (without a physical body), heavenly, or supernatural being, usually humanoid with bird-like wings, often depicted as a messenger or intermediary between God (the transcendent) and humanity (the profane) in variou ...

s. Another outstanding Gothic painting in the Wallraf-Richartz's collection is an ''

Arrest of Jesus The arrest of Jesus was a pivotal event in Christianity recorded in the canonical gospels. It occurred shortly after the Last Supper (during which Jesus gave his final sermon), and immediately after the kiss of Judas, which is traditionally sa ...

'' by the "

Master of the Karlsruhe Passion The Master of the Karlsruhe Passion is the notname of a German painter of the late Gothic period active in the Upper Rhine. Very influential on other painters in the region, he may be identified with the Strasbourg painter Hans Hirtz. He is nam ...

", the only surviving panel of that painter's influential Passion cycle not kept in the

Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe The Staatliche Kunsthalle (State Art Gallery) is an fine art museum in Karlsruhe, Germany. Its collection consists of works by mainly German, French, Flemish and Dutch masters from the past eight centuries. The museum was conceived in the early ...

Renaissance collection

The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum houses an

altarpiece An altarpiece is a painting or sculpture, including relief, of religious subject matter made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting or sculpture, ...

(1515) from the Great Saint Martin Church in Cologne, one of the few known works by Jacob van Utrecht. Among other

early Renaissance Renaissance art (1350 – 1620) is the painting, sculpture, and decorative arts of the period of European history known as the Renaissance, which emerged as a distinct style in Italy in about AD 1400, in parallel with developments which occurr ...

works in the collection are the ''Adoration of the Child'' by an unknown artist; previously thought to have been painted by

Hieronymus Bosch Hieronymus Bosch (; ; born Jheronimus van Aken ; – 9 August 1516) was a Dutch people, Dutch painter from Duchy of Brabant, Brabant. He is one of the most notable representatives of the Early Netherlandish painting school. His work, gene ...

, and a panel of the Jabach Altarpiece by

Albrecht Dürer Albrecht Dürer ( , ;; 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 or Duerer, was a German painter, Old master prin ...

Baroque collection

Among the artists in the collection from the Baroque through Rococo period are works by

Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged compositions reference erudite aspects of clas ...

(''

Juno and Argus ''Juno and Argus'' is a 1610 painting by Peter Paul Rubens, depicting Juno (mythology), Juno and Argus Panoptes, Argus. It is now in the Wallraf-Richartz Museum (inventory number WRM 1040) in Cologne. Bibliography

Some of the literature i ...

'', 1610);

Rembrandt Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn (; ; 15 July 1606 – 4 October 1669), mononymously known as Rembrandt was a Dutch Golden Age painter, printmaker, and Drawing, draughtsman. He is generally considered one of the greatest visual artists in ...

(self-portrait);

Jordaens Jacques (Jacob) Jordaens (19 May 1593 – 18 October 1678Jacques Jordaens
in the Netherlands Institute for Ar ...

;

Frans Snyders Frans Snyders or Frans Snijders (11November 157919August 1657) was a Flemish painter of animals, hunting scenes, market scenes, and still lifes. A versatile artist, his works depict all sorts of foods, utensils, and tableware and wide assortment ...

;

van Dyck Sir Anthony van Dyck (; ; 22 March 1599 – 9 December 1641) was a Flemish Baroque artist who became the leading court painter in England after success in the Spanish Netherlands and Italy. The seventh child of Frans van Dyck, a wealt ...

;

Frans Hals Frans Hals the Elder (, ; ; – 26 August 1666) was a Dutch Golden Age painter. He lived and worked in Haarlem, a city in which the local authority of the day frowned on religious painting in places of worship but citizens liked to decorate thei ...

;

Gerard van Honthorst Gerard van Honthorst (Dutch: ''Gerrit van Honthorst''; 4 November 1592 – 27 April 1656) was a Dutch Golden Age painting, Dutch Golden Age painter who became known for his depiction of artificially lit scenes, eventually receiving the nickn ...

;

Pieter de Hooch Pieter Hendricksz. de Hooch (; also spelled ''Hoogh'' or ''Hooghe''; 20 December 1629 – after 1683), was a Dutch Golden Age painter famous for his genre works of quiet domestic scenes with an open doorway. He was a contemporary, in the ...

;

Gerard de Lairesse Gerard or Gérard (de) Lairesse (; 11 September 1641 – June 1711) was a Dutch Golden Age painter and art theorist. His broad range of skills included music, poetry, and theatre. De Lairesse was influenced by the Perugian Cesare Ripa and ...

;

François Boucher François Boucher ( , ; ; 29 September 1703 – 30 May 1770) was a French painter, draughtsman and etcher, who worked in the Rococo style. Boucher is known for his idyllic and voluptuous paintings on classical themes, decorative allegories ...

; Nicolas de Largillierre;

Jean-Honoré Fragonard Jean-Honoré Fragonard (; 5 April 1732 (birth/baptism certificate) – 22 August 1806) was a French painter and printmaker whose late Rococo manner was distinguished by remarkable facility, exuberance, and hedonism. One of the most prolific art ...

;

Marguerite Gérard Marguerite Gérard (28 January 1761 in Grasse – 18 May 1837 in Paris) .Note that contrary to all other sources, the given death date is 1 January 1832, not 18 May 1837. was a French painter and printmaker working in the Rococo style. She was th ...

, and

Giambattista Pittoni Giambattista Pittoni or Giovanni Battista Pittoni (6 June 1687 – 6 November 1767) was a Venetian painter of the late Baroque or Rococo period. He was among the founders of the Academy of Fine Arts of Venice, of which in 1758 he became the s ...

Impressionist collection

The Wallraf-Richartz collection includes works by the

Impressionist Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...

Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...

Pissarro Jacob Abraham Camille Pissarro ( ; ; 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903) was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of Saint Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands, St Thomas (now in the US Virgin Islands, but t ...

Sisley Alfred Sisley (; ; 30 October 1839 – 29 January 1899) was an Impressionist landscape painter who was born and spent most of his life in France, but retained British citizenship. He was the most consistent of the Impressionists in his dedica ...

Gustave Caillebotte Gustave Caillebotte (; 19 August 1848 – 21 February 1894) was a French painter who was a member and patron of the Impressionists, although he painted in a more Realism (arts), realistic manner than many others in the group. Caillebotte was kno ...

, and

Berthe Morisot Berthe Marie Pauline Morisot (; 14 January 1841 – 2 March 1895) was a French painter, printmaker and a member of the circle of painters in Paris who became known as the Impressionists. In 1864, Morisot exhibited for the first time in the ...

, whose ''Child among staked roses'' or "Kind zwischen Stockrosen", was painted in 1881.

Monet forgery discovered

On 14 February 2008, the Wallraf–Richartz Museum announced that ''On the Banks of the Seine by Port Villez'', attributed to

Claude Monet Oscar-Claude Monet (, ; ; 14 November 1840 – 5 December 1926) was a French painter and founder of Impressionism painting who is seen as a key precursor to modernism, especially in his attempts to paint nature as he perceived it. During his ...

, was a forgery. The discovery was made when the painting was examined by restorers prior to an upcoming Impressionism exhibition.

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

and

infrared Infrared (IR; sometimes called infrared light) is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than that of visible light but shorter than microwaves. The infrared spectral band begins with the waves that are just longer than those ...

testing revealed that a "colorless substance" had been applied to the canvas to make it appear older. The picture was acquired by the museum in 1954. The museum, which will keep the forgery, still has five authentic Monet paintings in its collection.German museum discovers prized Monet is a fake

Gallery of art

File:BoschAdorationOfTheChildPainting.jpg,

, ''Adoration of the Child'', c.1568 or later File:Mountain Scene with Bridges - Joos de Momper - Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud-0186 (without frame).jpg,

Joos de Momper Joos de Momper the Younger or Joost de Momper the Younger (1564February5, 1635) was a Flemish landscape painter active in Antwerp between the late 16th century and the early 17th century. Brueghel's influence is clearly evident in many of de Momp ...

, '' Mountain Scene with Bridges'', Late 16th century or early 17th century File:Gerard van Honthorst 001.jpg,

, '' Adoration of the Shepherds'', 1622 File:Peter Paul Rubens 059.jpg,

, ''

Holy Family The Holy Family consists of the Child Jesus, the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph. The subject became popular in art from the 1490s on,Ainsworth, 122 but veneration of the Holy Family was formally begun in the 17th century by Saint François de La ...

'', 1634 File:Vincent Van Gogh 0014.jpg,

Van Gogh Vincent Willem van Gogh (; 30 March 185329 July 1890) was a Dutch Post-Impressionist painter who is among the most famous and influential figures in the history of Western art. In just over a decade, he created approximately 2,100 artwork ...

, '' Langlois Bridge at Arles'', 1888 File:Marianne Stokes Melisande.jpg,

Marianne Stokes Marianne Stokes (née Preindlsberger; 1855–1927) was an Austrian painter. She settled in England after her marriage to Adrian Scott Stokes (1854–1935), the landscape painter, whom she had met in Pont-Aven. Stokes was considered one of the l ...

, '' Melisande'', 1895-1898 File:Monet Ninfee (Colonia).jpg, Claude Oscar Monet "''Nymphéas''" (Waterlilies), Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud (Dep. 0377, Cologne); catalogue raisonné W 1852 File:Child among the Hollyhocks - Berthe Morisot - Paris 1863 – 1874- Revolution in der Kunst-9810 (without frame).jpg,

"''Child among staked roses''", 1881 File:0 La Pêche miraculeuse - P.P. Rubens - Wallraf Richards Museum, Köln (2).JPG,

Peter Paul Rubens Sir Peter Paul Rubens ( ; ; 28 June 1577 – 30 May 1640) was a Flemish painting, Flemish artist and diplomat. He is considered the most influential artist of the Flemish Baroque painting, Flemish Baroque tradition. Rubens' highly charged comp ...

, ''

Miraculous catch of fish The miraculous catch of fish, or more traditionally the miraculous draught of fish(es), is either of two events commonly (but not universally) considered to be miracles in the canonical gospels. The miracles are reported as taking place years ap ...

'', 1610

References

External links

*
Literature on and by Walraf-Richartz Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wallraf-Richartz Museum Art museums and galleries in Germany Museums in Cologne Innenstadt, Cologne Art museums and galleries established in 1824 1824 establishments in Prussia