BODE MUSEUM – MUSEUM ISLAND - BERLIN
Byzantine Art, Sculpture and Coins
In the age of empires, when the great European powers rolled over Middle-East and royal house collected cultural artworks, design and antiquities found their way into museums. In the last decades, the question of whether those antiquities should be returned to their natural home countries, but with the recent upheavals and forces like ISIS destroying centuries of ancient culture, we may ultimately be thankful that we can still see that art in museums, and one of the most significant repositories is at Berlin’s Museum Island (Museums Insel), the amazing collection of four separate but connected museums of art and antiquities.
The Bode Museum houses two main collections the Sculpture Collection and Byzantine Art and the Münzkabinett (or coin collection), can be found on the northern corner back side of the Museum Island, facing the Spree River where cruise boats pass. The collection was originally the Kaiser Frederich Museum when it first opened in 1904, but renamed in the post-war era under the East Germans as the Bode Museum after the first director. The concept for the museum goes back to the Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, who proposed the idea in 1883, and was named for her husband when he died in 1888. It was the princess’s idea painted art and sculpture should be displayed side by side and considered equal as art forms, and this was the first museum to follow that “radical” idea.
The building itself, built in 1897 in a Renaissance inspired design by Eberhard von Ihne, is one of the most beautiful of the museums on the island for its own architecture, as impressive a setting as the art within. It has the appearance of a royal palace, with a domed entrance and the river as a moat. The museum holds one of the largest collections of ancient sculpture in the world. The works of art, which came from the royal Brandenburg-Prussian Kunstkammer are displayed in an environment much as they might have been in an imperial setting, an effect which adds to their visual impact. The building was heavily damaged in the bombings of World War II and underwent a number of stages of restoration from 1948 to 1986. The display of sculptures is enlarged by the addition of about 150 works from the collection of the Gemaldgalerie.
The collection features an array of masterpieces such as Donatello’s ‘Pazzi Madonna’ and Antonio Canova’s ‘Dancer’ and several examples of important German sculpture. The Byzantine art section of the museum presents prime holdings of late-antique and Byzantine works of art ranging from the 3rd Century to the 15th Century. Nearly all the works come from the ancient Mediterranean region, especially pre-Christian and Christian sarcophagi from Rome, religious ornamental and figurative sculpture from the Eastern Christian Roman Empire. The Münzkabinett section features one of the world’s most important numismatic collections. Displayed in four large cabinets on the second floor with 4,000 coins and medals, the collection also contains other forms of money, seals, tokens, as well as the tools of the minter’s art. There are revolving temporary exhibitions, as well as a small Baroque Collection and Tapestries in the Gobelins Room.
Visiting Bode Museum
The Bode Museum is open from 10am to 6pm Tuesday to Sunday, with late hours on Thursday’s until 8pm, and closed Mondays. Last admission is 30 minutes before closing. The Gobelins Tapestries are only open on weekends and holidays. © Bargain Travel Europe
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