Information
The Kupferstichkabinett Berlin, founded in 1831, is Germany’s largest collection of works on paper, with a total of around 650,000 objects. In addition to prints, drawings, oil sketches and watercolors, it also houses illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, sketchbooks, books with artists’ prints and printing plates.
In the field of Netherlandish art, which is an outstanding area of collection in Berlin, the focus is on works from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with the Dutch schools in particular being represented in great depth and variety. Among them are some early Netherlandish drawings and masterpieces by Goltzius, De Gheyn, Jan and Esaias van de Velde, Cuyp and Ruisdael. However, the Flemish school is also well represented, for example with drawings from the Antwerp Mannerist school, by Rubens, Van Dyck, Jordaens, Jan Brueghel, Teniers and others. Highlights of the collection include six sheets recognized as being by Hieronymus Bosch himself, nine drawings by Pieter Bruegel, the Roman sketchbooks by Maarten van Heemskerck and one of the world’s largest collections of drawings by Rembrandt, with more than 50 sheets.
The print collection is primarily represented by works of painter-engravers, while several thousand sheets of reproductive prints were destroyed or lost during World War II while in evacuation. After 1945, some of those gaps in the collection were filled, for example in the area of the Rubens School. The collection preserved today includes for example the entire print oeuvre of Lucas van Leyden and, with very few exceptions, that of Rembrandt as well as Van Dycks Iconographia and some prints by Hercules Seghers.
Dr. Christien Melzer, Curator for Netherlandish and English Art before 1800 (January 2026)
Collection catalogues
Die niederländischen Meister. Beschreibendes Verzeichnis sämtlicher Zeichnungen (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Die Zeichnungen alter Meister im Kupferstichkabinett)
Elfried Bock and Jakob Rosenberg, edited by Max J. Friedländer
Berlin 1930
Die holländische Landschaftszeichnung. Hauptwerke aus dem Berliner Kupferstichkabinett (Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Kupferstichkabinett)
Wolfgang Schulz
Berlin 1974
Peter Paul Rubens. Kritischer Katalog der Zeichnungen. Originale – Umkreis – Kopien (Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz. Die Zeichnungen alter Meister im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett)
Hans Mielke and Matthias Winner
Berlin 1977
Die niederländischen Zeichnungen des 15. Jahrhunderts im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett: kritischer Katalog
Buck, Stephanie
Turnhout 2001
Rembrandt. Die Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett. Kritischer Katalog (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Die Zeichnungen alter Meister im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett)
Holm Bevers
Ostfildern 2006
Niederländische Zeichnungen und Druckgraphik der Sammlung Christoph Müller im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett. Kritisches Bestandsverzeichnis (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Die Zeichnungen alter Meister im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett)
Holm Bevers and Ulf Sölter
Berlin 2008
Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Dokumentation der Verluste, Band VIII/I: Kupferstichkabinett. Deutsche und niederländische Zeichnungen des 15. bis 18. Jahrhunderts
Dagmar Korbacher, Andreas Meinecke, Stefan Morét, Dieter Scholz and Jana Teuscher
Berlin 2010
Related CODART publications
Dr. Christien Melzer, “The Allure of Maarten van Heemskerck’s Roman Drawings”, CODARTfeatures, July 2024.