The Gemäldegalerie, a term that translates to Paintings Gallery, is a museum that, as the name implies, is dedicated to the masterworks and biggest names of the classical European schools of painting from more than 500 years of history. Its collection, which ranks among the most significant in the world, is housed by a striking building specifically designed for this purpose, located only a few minutes away from the famous public park Tiergarten.
Since its inception in 1830, the museum’s collection has continuously been added to and expanded. Today, the Gemäldegalerie houses thousands of paintings by the fabled Old Masters and the biggest European artists from the 13th to the 18th century that enthral their visitors in ten unique sections, each with its own thematic or chronological focus. Thanks to these priceless treasures, the collection of the Gemäldegalerie ranks among the finest in the world, making the museum one of the German capital’s most popular cultural destinations. To fully enjoy these artworks, the museum even provides its visitors with audio guides in English and German.
Roaming the halls of the museums, visitors may marvel at incomparable artworks from the greatest European painters, predominantly stemming from the German, Italian, Dutch, and Flemish schools of painting, in a collection that includes works by Albrecht Dürer, Caravaggio, Peter Paul Rubens, Raffael, Tizian, Jan Vermeer van Delft, Pieter Bruegel, Giotto, and Jan van Eyck. These paintings belong to the different schools of the period, including portraits, landscape scenes, still lives, and genre paintings, each with their own history and unique appeal. Due to its significance, the collection of 16 Rembrandt paintings has even been given its own exhibition hall.
Today, the Gemäldegalerie is housed by a museum constructed specifically for the purpose of showcasing the collection of paintings, located in close proximity to the Kulturforum as well as the Tiergarten, Berlin’s most popular public park and one of the city’s most popular attractions in its own right. The museum is built around a central hall that is illuminated by 32 glass cupolas installed in the ceiling whose severe, clear lines harken back to Berlin’s heritage of Prussian Classicism and which provides a perfect backdrop for the artwork on display.
How to get here:
The easiest way of getting to the Gemäldegalerie is taking line 1 of Stromma’s Hop On – Hop Off buses to stop 15, Kulturforum.
