3 .
K U N S T P A L A S
T
EHRENHOF 4-5
The Gallery of Paintings , with works of European
painting from the fifteenth to the beginning of the
twentieth century , is the department with the
oldest roots at Museum Kunstpalast . They go back
ultimately to the legendary Picture Gallery that
Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm founded at the
close of the seventeenth century .
In 1846 , to make good the loss of the Electoral
Picture Gallery , Düsseldorf citizens founded the
‘ Verein zur Errichtung einer Gemäldegalerie zu
Düsseldorf ’ ( Society for the Establishment of an Art
Gallery at Düsseldorf ). This set to acquiring
contemporary art , that is , paintings by the
Düsseldorf School . In 1870 , following Prussia ’ s final
waiver of her goal of having Bavaria return the
Electoral Picture Gallery to Düsseldorf , the Prussian
government gave the Düsseldorf Gallery paintings of
great value and dating from the fifteenth to the
seventeenth century from the Nationalgalerie at
Berlin , as a loan . In 2011 , a further permanent loan
was received .
When , in 1913 , the Gallery Society prompted the
founding of the Municipal Art Collections ,, the new
Museumsverein ( Museum Society ) bought for the
Gallery of Paintings works from European artistic
centres such as Berlin , Dresden , Munich or Paris .
The 625 works on permanent loan from the Academy
Collection from 1932 gave the Gallery of Paintings a
further focus , namely upon Italian , Dutch and
Flemish Art of the Fifteenth to the Eighteenth
Century . The then newly installed ‘ Gallery of the
Baroque ’, with works ranging from Rubens to
Zurbarán , today ’ s ‘ Rubensgalerie ’, was expanded by
further gifts and acquisitions such as from the
August Schubert Collection ( 1935 ).