TIn the year 2000, the Sculpture Collection and the Museum of Byzantine Art were merged to form one museum. In August 2000, the Bode-Museum, formerly the Kaiser Friedrich Museum, was closed for reconstruction. With the re-opening of the Bode Museum on 19 October 2006, the Sculpture Collection and the Museum of Byzantine Art, together with the Numismatic Collection and works of the Gemäldegalerie - Old Master Paintings, are once more on display in their full splendour.

The Sculpture Collection

The Sculpture Collection is one of Germany's largest collections of sculptures dating from the Middle Ages and later. It originates in the Prussian "Art Cabinet" collections, the Brandenburgisch-Preußische Kunstkammern. After decades of being dispersed, the collection of sculpture was reunited in the Bode Museum, its original home.

The Sculpture Collection possesses works from the Early Middle Ages to the late eighteenth century, from the German-speaking countries, France, the Netherlands, Italy and Spain. Italian sculpture is a particular area of emphasis in the collection. Major medieval pieces, such as the Madonna by Presbyter Martinus and the Man of Sorrows by Giovanni Pisano, lead on to masterpieces of the early Renaissance. Glazed terracottas by Luca della Robbia, Donatello's Pazzi Madonna and the portrait busts by Desiderio da Settignano, Francesco Laurana and Mino da Fiesole are all highlights of the collection.

Late Gothic German sculpture is another prominent section with works by Hans Multscher, Tilman Riemenschneider, Hans Brüggemannn, Nicolaus Gerhaert van Leyden and Hans Leinberger. Statuettes made of alabaster, boxwood and ivory represent sculpture of the German Renaissance and Baroque periods. The monumental wooden sculptures of knight-saints Zürn dating from the Thirty Years War are particularly impressive works of craftsmanship.

The museum also possesses some excellent examples of architectural sculpture. The gallery from the church in Gröningen is a major work of the German Romanesque period. Sculptures by Andreas Schlüter and the six figures of generals, which were created for the former Wilhelmplatz, represent Berlin sculpture of the 17th and 18th century. Rococo and early and late Classicism in Germany and France are represented with works by Ignaz Günther, Joseph Anton Feuchtmayer, Edme Bouchardon, and Jean-Antoine Houdon.

The study collection of the newly opened Bode Museum displays numerous pieces of Italian sculpture by different schools, mainly from the period of the Renaissance. They include the bronze head of Lodovico Gonzaga, the head fragment of the "Princess of Naples", and the bust of Flora which, much-debated regarding its position within the history of art, has recently been redated. Focal points are the 15th century Madonna reliefs made of clay, stucco and cartapesta, centred around a madonna composition by Jacopo Sansovino, one of the most important works of its kind in the 16th century, as well as a number of fragments of first-class sculptures shown for the first time since the end of the Second World War.

As a particular highlight of contemporary state support, the museum's collection is being supplemented for three years with thirty works from the "Kunstkammer Würth", the collection of the industrialist, art collector and patron Reinhold Würth. Next to a 17th century cabinet, the Kunstkammer mainly contains small ivory sculptures from the 17th and 18th centuries by artists such as Leonhard Kern, Zacharias Hegewald, Joachim Henne, Adam Lenckhardt, Paul Egell or Christoph Daniel Schenck. Moreover, the presentation includes a precious 17th century amber altar, a silver piece showing Diana on a stag, partially gilt by Paulus Ättinger, as well as turned ivories.

The collection of the Museum of Byzantine Art

The Museum of Byzantine Art owns a first-class collection of art works and utility objects from late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. It is the only one of its kind within Germany. The focus of the collection is on art of the Western Roman and Byzantine Empires dating from the third to the fifteenth century. Additionally, there are a large number of post-Byzantine icons and small art works.

Nearly all of the works of art originate from the ancient mediterranean region, from Rome and Italy, from Istanbul (the Byzantine Constantinople) and Turkey, from Greece and the Balkan countries, from Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, North Africa, the Near Eastern and Russian countries - according to expansion of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires and the states which continued the inheritance of the Byzantine culture.

Out of this broad spectrum, the Berlin collection has shaped its distinctive profile, defined by four main aspects: Roman sarcophagi and sarcophagi fragments from Late Antiquity offer a panorama of Early Christian iconography in the capital of the Western Roman Empire. The rich holdings of figurative and ornamental sculpture from the Eastern Roman Empire allow insight into the stylistic diversity and developments within this genre; no collection other than the archaeological museum in Istanbul is on par with this part of the Berlin collection. Precious ivory carvings and mosaic icons document the high technical and artistic standard of Byzantine court art. Every-day objects and Christian religious items from Egypt give an idea of daily life and the equipment of liturgical procedures. Among these are excavated objects made of organic material such as wood or fabric which owe their preservation to Egypt's hot and dry desert climate.

The Numismatic Collection is one of the largest collections of its kind with around 500,000 objects. The collection owes its international renown to its rich diversity as well as the comprehensiveness of its coin series which range from the beginnings of coinage in the seventh century BC in Asia Minor to the coins and medals of the twenty-first century.

The most significant holdings within the Numismatic Collection include: 102,000 Greek coins and about 50,000 from ancient Rome; 160,00 European coins from the Middle Ages to modern times and 35,000 Oriental-Islamic coins. There are also 25,000 examples of medals, which began to develop as an art form around 1400 AD.

Presented by:

Numismatic Collection

The Museum of Byzantine Art owns a first-class collection of art works and utility objects from late Antiquity and the Byzantine period. It is the only one of its kind within Germany. The focus of the collection is on art of the Western Roman and Byzantine Empires dating from the third to the fifteenth century. Additionally, there are a large number of post-Byzantine icons and small art works.

Nearly all of the works of art originate from the ancient mediterranean region, from Rome and Italy, from Istanbul (the Byzantine Constantinople) and Turkey, from Greece and the Balkan countries, from Egypt, Nubia, Ethiopia, North Africa, the Near Eastern and Russian countries - according to expansion of the Eastern and Western Roman Empires and the states which continued the inheritance of the Byzantine culture.

Out of this broad spectrum, the Berlin collection has shaped its distinctive profile, defined by four main aspects: Roman sarcophagi and sarcophagi fragments from Late Antiquity offer a panorama of Early Christian iconography in the capital of the Western Roman Empire. The rich holdings of figurative and ornamental sculpture from the Eastern Roman Empire allow insight into the stylistic diversity and developments within this genre; no collection other than the archaeological museum in Istanbul is on par with this part of the Berlin collection. Precious ivory carvings and mosaic icons document the high technical and artistic standard of Byzantine court art. Every-day objects and Christian religious items from Egypt give an idea of daily life and the equipment of liturgical procedures. Among these are excavated objects made of organic material such as wood or fabric which owe their preservation to Egypt's hot and dry desert climate.

Presented by:
Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art

The most famous testaments to medieval church art from the National Museums' Museum of Decorative Arts, Berlin, and the Dom-Museum, Hildesheim, have been brought together in a show hosted in the Bode Museum. The impetus for the exhibition is both positive and distinctly practical in nature, as extensive renovation work is currently being undertaken at both the Berlin Museum of Decorative Arts and the Dom-Museum in Hildesheim. Rather than having the two institution's most beautiful treasures hidden away from the public during this time, the exquisite sacred art treasures will go on show, brought together for the first and last time.

The centrepiece of this exhibition is formed by key works from the Welfenschatz (which once made up the church treasure of the Collegiate Church of Saint Blaise in Braunschweig, also known as Brunswick), as well as from the Hildesheim cathedral treasure, which, together with the Hildesheim cathedral itself and the convent church of St. Michael, form a UNESCO world cultural heritage site. Important incunabula and illustrated manuscripts from the Berlin State Library and selected works from the host museum's own Sculpture Collection complete the spectacular exhibition.

Awaiting the visitor are numerous works representing various high-points in European cultural history, ranging from Late Antiquity to the late Gothic period. Thanks to the striking juxtapositions of the works, visitors are afforded new and often surprising perspectives on these testaments of deep faith and the exceptional artistic craftsmanship, be it, for instance, while admiring the expressive, 1000 year-old Bernwardian silver casts, or the radiant, colour-rich enamel works that bear witness to Romantic enamel art from Cologne and Hildesheim.

An exhibition organized by the Museum of Decorative Arts in conjunction with the Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art and the Dom-Museum in Hildesheim.

Presented by:

Dom-Museum Hildesheim
Museum of Decorative Arts
Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art

An exhibition for children aged 4 to 10.

Tales of dragons and heroes are fantastical and real at once, colourful and faded, brash and gentle, grand and pithy. They've already been told a thousand times before, can be read out loud, acted out and or become the stuff of painting. But they can also be newly invented and told for the first time. In our museum, we've got a host of dragon-slayers, proud knights and women saints, just waiting to be discovered.

Saint George, that most eminent of dragon-slayers, has many exciting adventures to retell. But besides him, there were a few women saints able to tame the odd dragon too. So just what is it that makes a hero?

Dragons and heroes are all on show in this exhibition in the Children's Gallery, where a fantastical world entices young visitors to join in by telling or hearing tales, by playing and touching, or by painting and making puzzles. And, last but not least, there's a dragon's skeleton on show that needs some beautifully painted dragon scales to cover it and to bring it to life for us to admire.

Presented by:

Besucher-Dienste der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin

Coins and medals reflect the history of Prussia and its great king in an immediate way: quite literally in the palms of our hands. No other European monarch wrought such wide-reaching changes to his country's coinage and monetary system as Frederick II of Prussia. With his coinage reforms of 1750 and 1764, he not only set Prussia on a new course, but also significantly paved the way for later monetary developments in the rest of Germany.
By radically debasing the currency, specifically of specie (by lowering the quantity of precious metals in newly minted coins), he managed to finance the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). He was just as radical in overhauling the Prussian currency after the war. The mints went from being half-private companies to efficient, state-run money factories. Under Frederick II, gold coins and larger silver coins were standardised across the country in a process that started in 1750. The diversity of territories under Prussian control and their various types of coins and monetary systems are reflected in the coins of the time. The coin portraits of Frederick II reveal a lot about the image of the ruler - from handsome young man in the year of his coronation in 1740 up to his death in 1786, by which time he was dubbed 'Old Fritz'. Besides his great battles and victories, various other kinds of events that took place during his reign are captured on his medals.

The Numismatic Collection holds over 3500 coins from the time of Frederick the Great, thus making it not only the largest, but also the most complete collection of its kind in the world. This particular collection will be published for the first time in its entirety, in a combination of print and online catalogues to mark the celebrations surrounding Frederick II's birth. The result means that the public now has unprecedented access to this historical source on the life of Frederick the Great.

The exhibition is being held as part of a wider series of events called 'Art - King - Enlightenment', coordinated by the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation in honour of the 300th anniversary of the birth of Frederick the Great on 24 January 2012.

Presented by:
Numismatic Collection

The storerooms of the Museum of Byzantine Art contain an array of ceramics and several surprisingly well preserved glass objects from the East Roman Empire. Most of these objects have never been placed on public display before. Several selected ceramics and some glassware from Egypt and Asia Minor are now on display in rooms 110 and 113 of the Bode Museum.
Several painted and, in some instances, unusually shaped terracotta vessels represent the diversity of pottery craftsmanship in late antique and early Christian Egypt. The earliest examples of glazed ceramic from the Byzantine Empire with ornamentation executed either in paint, scratched plaster (sgraffito) or enamelling in the champlevé technique, date back to the 8th century. The works became markedly more popular from the 10th century onwards and often feature added dots of color that stand up from the ceramic surface.

Like ceramic, glassware was also often part of the smaller finds in excavations of former Byzantine settlements. Together, these artefacts are a testament to the rich diversity of forms and styles of decoration in the multifaceted Byzantine culture of dining.

Presented by:
Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art

Marking the 20th anniversary of German unity, this exhibition sees a range of medals go on display that were created in the momentous years of 1989 and 1990. Various artists from both the East and West of the country had their impressions of moving occurrences in German history cast in metal in the immediate aftermath of the events of 1989.

It is quite rare for a pivotal moment in a country's history to be so emphatically and representatively captured for and by the art of that particular country. The exhibition will be first go on show from 19 March to 9 April 2010 in Speyer, in the Stadt- und Kreissparkasse bank, before being on permanent display in the Bode Museum from 17 April 2010. The first stage of the exhibition was officially opened by Bernhard Vogel, the long-serving minister-president of the states of Rheinland-Pfalz and Thüringen.

Presented by:

Numismatic Collection