In 1827, King Ludwig I of Bavaria acquired one of the most important collections of medieval and early Renaissance painting in Germany: the art collection of the Boisserée brothers. Many of the outstanding works, including precious masterpieces of Early German painting, originated from the brothers’ home city of Cologne, from churches, abbeys, and convents relinquished in the wake of the dissolution of the monasteries during the Napoleonic occupation. As a result, many religious works of art that had helped earn the city on the Rhine the epithet of ’Holy Cölln’ found their way to the Bavarian capital. Among them was one of the masterpieces of Early Netherlandish painting: Rogier van der Weyden’s Columba Altarpiece. The acquisition was a coup for the Bavarian king, for in one fell swoop he managed to secure for his nascent ’Pinakothek’ paintings by Hans Memling, Stefan Lochner, and other masters not yet represented in the Wittelsbach collection formed over many generations.

Today, at a time of renewed warfare in Europe and further afield, the exhibition explores themes that have lost none of their relevance: the loss of homeland and the stripping away of original religious contexts, the museumification of sacred art, cultural identity, and heritage preservation. These were equally pressing concerns for those living in the aftermath of the French Revolution, perceived by contemporaries as a watershed moment, or, to borrow a German term much used today, a ‘Zeitenwende’.