History of the Collection

The great majority of the artworks presently on view in the Old Masters Picture Gallery were assembled in little over fifty years. Two successive electors and kings of Poland – August the Strong (Saxon elector from1694, Polish king from 1697) and his son King August III (reign: 1733-1763) – systematically developed the specialized collection. Particularly the younger of the two sovereigns distinguished himself by his remarkable connoisseurship in the area of painting and graphic arts. They succeeded in making significant acquisitions, including the spectacular purchase of one hundred masterworks from the holdings of the Duke of Modena, presumably carried out in 1746. In the course of the following year, the collection – its excellence already acknowledged throughout Europe – moved to the altered stable on the Neumarkt.

The relatively limited period of establishment is what lends this collection its special quality. Composed primarily of works of the High Renaissance and the Baroque along with virtuoso examples by the collectors’ contemporaries, it is a perfect testimony to the tastes of the eighteenth century. Gottfried Semper’s design for the present gallery building adjacent to the Zwinger was carried to realization between 1847 and 1855.

During World War II, the paintings were stored elsewhere and survived unharmed, while the Semper Building itself was severely damaged in 1945. After the war, the works were transported to the former Soviet Union.

The reconstruction of the gallery building got under way in 1955 in response to the announcement of the return of its holdings from the East; by 1960 the entire gallery had reopened. Fundamental modernization measures were carried out in the Semper Building between 1988 and 1992 with an emphasis on the preservation and reconstruction of the historical architecture. In its present form, the collection of Old Masters is justifiably considered one of Europe’s most splendid painting galleries.