Caspar David Friedrich | Lone Tree (Solitary Tree; Village Landscape with Morning Lighting) | 1822 | Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin | Image and original data provided by Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Image Archive (Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz) and ARTstor have released more than 3,500 additional images of key works from the Berlin State Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin). This release includes masterworks from such canonical artists as Albrecht Dürer, Caspar David Friedrich, Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Hieronymus Bosch, Käthe Kollwitz, Lovis Corinth, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Matthias Grünewald, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Peter Paul Rubens, and Rembrandt.
The Berlin State Museums represent the result of centuries of collecting. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, the holdings increased enormously through generous donations, through archaeological fieldwork and through sponsored ethnological expeditions. Today the national museums in Berlin consist of sixteen museums, each with its own special area of competence. Despite the losses suffered between 1933 and 1945, most of their collections rank high among the major museums of the world.
The works in this release come from the collections of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection (Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung), Berlin Antiquities Collection (Antikensammlung Berlin), Picture Gallery (Gemäldegalerie), Museum of Decorative Arts (Kunstgewerbemuseum), Museum of Prints and Drawings (Kupferstichkabinett), Numismatic Collection (Münzkabinett), Museum of European Cultures (Museum Europäischer Kulturen), Museum of Asian Art (Museum für Asiatische Kunst), Museum of Islamic Art (Museum für Islamische Kunst), Museum of Prehistory and Early History (Museum für Vor- und Frühgeschichte), National Gallery (Nationalgalerie), Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art (Skulpturensammlung und Museum für Byzantinische Kunst), and Museum of the Ancient Near East (Vorderasiatisches Museum).
View the collection in the Digital Library: http://library.artstor.org/library/collection/berlin
For more detailed information about this collection, visit the Classical Sculptures (Berlin State Museums) collection page.
Related collections:
This post leads one to believe that the following will be available for viewing: “This release includes masterworks from such canonical artists as Albrecht Dürer, Caspar David Friedrich, Emil Nolde, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Hieronymus Bosch, Käthe Kollwitz, Lovis Corinth, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Matthias Grünewald, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Peter Paul Rubens, and Rembrandt.” If you click the link to view the collection in the Digital Library, however, it is all sculptures and objects–no paintings.
Thanks for bringing this to our attention – it seems that the images are indeed available in the ARTstor Digital Library, but they’re currently not showing up under that collection link (you can find them by doing searches for each of the names). We’ve requested that this be corrected; I’ll follow up here when it is.
Thank you so much, Giovanni. I am leading a trip to Berlin for a course, and it is going to be immensely helpful to be able to see the full collection in one place as I plan what to see.
Hello Giovanni,
I, too, would like to know when the range of images are available to browse. My faculty are less likely to be captivated by the current selection than by a broad range of time periods and medium.
Thank you, though, for all of this– it’s very exciting and extremely useful.
Louise Putnam
Visual Resources Manager
UMass Boston
Hi Kristi and Louise, the collection has been fixed! You may have to clear your cache once before you see all the images, but it’s working: http://library.artstor.org/library/collection/berlin.