Alte Pinakothek

About this place

The Alte Pinakothek is a gallery of European painting from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century, and one of the oldest art museums in the world open to the public. King Ludwig I of Bavaria ordered it built to display what the Wittelsbach family had accumulated over three centuries; Leo von Klenze designed it and it opened in 1836. At the time it was the largest museum building anywhere, and cities across Europe copied its plan. The holdings are the reason to come: the largest Rubens collection in the world, Albrecht Duerer's Self-Portrait of 1500, in which he painted himself in the pose of Christ, and his Four Apostles. Albrecht Altdorfer's Battle of Alexander at Issus of 1529 hangs here, with its burning sky and armies counted in thousands of painted figures. There is also Leonardo's Madonna of the Carnation, and work by Raphael, Titian, Rembrandt and Murillo. The building itself carries a story. Bombing left it a punctured shell, and when the architect Hans Doellgast rebuilt it between 1952 and 1957 he refused to hide the wound: he closed the enormous gap in the south front with plain bare brick and no ornament, so the damage stays legible across Klenze's elegant facade. The galleries are wide and quiet, a serious visit needs at least two hours, and on Sundays entry is one euro.