Dresden’s Old Masters Picture Gallery Reopens After a $50 Million Renovation, Looking to Shake Up How We Experience Classical Art

Since 1754, one of Raphael’s most enigmatic paintings, The
Sistine Madonna, has resided at the Old Masters Picture
Gallery in Dresden (besides a short stint during which the painting
headed to Russia, following the German’s loss in World War II).
This weekend, the Madonna and her two iconic little angels are on
view within a new constellation of paintings and sculptures,
following the institution’s seven-year-long renovation and rehang
of its historic collection.

Already, the Old Masters Picture Gallery’s new look (which bore
a price tag of over $50 million) has received extensive praise from
the German press. The museum has rehung a display of 700
paintings, with 420 antique and post-antique sculptures now
standing side-by-side these canvases for the first time. This means
that masterpieces by Rembrandt, Raphael, and Titian are in direct
conversation with the museum’s impressive sculpture collection,
which ranges from classical times up to 1800.

The opulent museum building, called the Semper Gallery, is
expecting masses of visitors over the weekend for its opening on
Saturday, February 29. The opening festivities provide a
moment of optimism for an art-filled city that made headlines last
fall when its Green Vault was robbed of priceless
jewels. The museum confirmed that during renovations
security measures had been adapted in view of the burglary at the
Green Vault.

“I am absolutely thrilled by how successfully the gallery has
been carefully but firmly modernized,” Stephan Koja, director of
the Old Masters Picture Galleries and its Sculpture Collection,
said in an official statement to the press. He joined the museum
midway through the extensive renovations, which have also updated
climate controls and the institution’s architecture. “It is a
particularly lovely challenge to refurnish and redesign such a
historically significant museum,” he adds, stressing that the
museum holds the oldest and largest collection of antiquities north
of the Alps, charting “five millennia of European artistic and
cultural history.”

A newly christened sculpture hall, which previously held armory
and weapons, now means that light basks over the marble figures on
clear days. Not far away are 64 works by Lucas Cranach the
Elder, some 39 pieces from the workshop of Peter Paul Rubens, and
24 paintings by Anthony van Dyck. Bright walls add a colorful
backdrop to paintings like Giorgione’s Slumbering Venus,
Rembrandt’s Ganymede, and Titian’s
Zinsgroschen. 

Italian art is now hung on rich crimson walls; German and Dutch
work gets a regal green treatment, while French and Spanish art is
displayed against blue backgrounds. Many of the artworks and frames
underwent extensive restoration during the revamp. Despite there
being around 1,100 works now on view, this represents only a
fraction of the muscular Dresden State Collections.

Another highlight is Vermeer’s Girl Reading a Letter at an
Open Window. It’s here, bearing new surprises: Last year,
during the restoration, a hidden angel was
uncovered in the painting.

New chronological groupings of art from different countries are
aimed at conjuring an image of what it means to be human, according
to several statements from the museum. Marion Ackermann,
director-general of the Dresden State Collections, says the rehang
“revives the original spirit of the Kunstkammer (Art Chamber): the
idea of works of art and artifacts co-existing in a dialogue that
transcends the boundaries of the genres.”

Beyond the permanent exhibitions, a hall is dedicated to
temporary exhibitions as well. The Winckelmann Forum will welcome a
Raphael show this April (2020 marks the 500th anniversary of the
artist’s death). There’s also a planned show focused on Vermeer’s
Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window set
for 2022, which will later travel to Japan.

Dresden itself is still working through the trauma of the city’s
February 1945 bombing, which flattened 90 percent of its buildings
and homes as the Allies closed in on Nazi Germany. The original Old
Masters Picture Gallery was largely devastated, and most of the
collection was removed by the Russian army to Moscow and Kiev. Some
450 works are still missing or lost. The sheer quantity of
artworks in the revamped museum is sure to draw even more tourism
to Dresden. Some 75 percent of visitors come from abroad; half of
them are Russian.

The post Dresden’s Old Masters Picture Gallery Reopens After
a $50 Million Renovation, Looking to Shake Up How We Experience
Classical Art appeared first on artnet News.