Alte Pinakothek
Five Centuries of European Painting
The Alte Pinakothek in Munich is one of the most significant art museums in Germany. It houses the art collection of the House of Wittelsbach — the noble family that ruled Bavaria for 738 years — which comprises hundreds of paintings from the 14th to the 18th centuries, featuring Flemish Primitives and Renaissance painting from Germany & Italy, 17th-century Flemish & Dutch painting, baroque painting from Italy & France, and some Spanish works. And now that the next-door Neue Pinakothek is closed for a long time for a protracted renovation, a temporary exhibition in the Alte Pinakothek’s east wing has been arranged to show some of the 19th-century highlights from its twin gallery.
Probably the most famous painting in the Alte Pinakothek is Albrecht Dürer’s self-portait at 28, one of the iconic works from the Northern Renaissance. Further highlights include Rogier van der Weyden’s magnificent altarpiece The Adoration of the Magi, Leonardo da Vinci’s Madonna of the Carnation, The Canigiani Holy Family by Raphael, The Land of Cockaigne by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Harbour Scene with Christ Preaching and Large Fish Market by Pieter’s younger son Jan Brueghel the Elder, Peter Paul Rubens’ The Great Last Judgement and his Fall of the Damned, a self-portrait by Rembrandt, Diego Velázquez’s Young Spanish Nobleman, Grape and Melon Eaters by Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and Madame de Pompadour by François Boucher.
www.pinakothek.deReader Comments
Tony
In the BBC Radio 4 podcast Germany: Memories of a Nation Neil MacGregor focuses on the work of Albrecht Dürer, arguing that he is the defining artist of Germany. His images — and his self-image (‘Albertus Durerus Noricus ipſum me proprijs ſic effingebam coloribus ætatis anno
XXVIII ’) — are known to all Germans. He was a new kind of artist, clearly fascinated with himself, the first great artist in Europe to paint so many self-portraits. He embodies the Renaissance idea of the artist as hero & star, entirely engaged with a new world and a new technology. Dürer was also the first artist to sell his work widely throughout Europe.
Arne
At the age of 35, Dürer himself was not at all under the impression that he was the defining artist of Germany, at least not at home in Nuremberg. In a letter to his close friend Willibald Pirckheimer that he wrote from Venice in 1506, he commented: ‘Here I am a gentleman, at home a sponger.’
Bernd
Next to the portrait of Madame de Pompadour, who was the maîtresse en titre of King Louis XV of France from 1745 to 1751, is another painting by François Boucher, Resting Girl. Rumour had it that the girl in question was Marie-Louise O’Murphy, who became Louis’ petite maîtresse after the King demanded to see the model depicted in the painting and found her even better-looking in the flesh.
Bernhard
The Pinakothek, commissioned by King Ludwig I, was opened in 1836. The architect Leo von Klenze created a pioneering museum building that, with its sequence of large halls lit by skylights, became exemplary for other museum buildings. Largely destroyed in World War II, by 1957 the Pinakothek was rebuilt to the designs of the architect Hans Döllgast. Missing sections of the façade were not reconstructed, but replaced with exposed brickwork so that they would remain recognizable as ‘wounds’.