Neue Pinakothek - 18th and 19th Century European Painting and Sculpture

The Neue Pinakothek contains many key European paintings and sculpture from the period between the end of the 18th century up to around 1900.

In the 1820s King Ludwig I of Bavaria began to collect paintings by contemporary artists, and privately funded the building of the Neue Pinakothek (1846-1853) to house his collection. After the original building was destroyed in 1944/45, selected works were provisionally displayed in the Haus der Kunst, until a replacement, designed by architect Alexander Freiherr von Branca, was opened in 1981.

The route through the 22 gallery rooms starts with English, Spanish and French portrait and landscape painting, including works by Thomas Gainsborough, Francisco Goya and Jacques Louis David. The overall focal points are: Caspar David Friedrich, Karl Blechen and Phillip Otto Runge for German Romanticism; the Nazarenes Schadow and Overbeck; artists such as Moritz von Schwind and Carl Spitzweg; as well as the German Neo-classicists Hans von Mareés, Arnold Böcklin and Anselm Feuerbach. The painterly style of Pre-Impressionist masters such as Adolph Menzel, Wilhelm Leibl and his circle can be seen. French painting of this period is represented with works by Géricault, Delacroix, Courbet, Daubigny and Corot. Major Impressionist paintings (by Manet, Monet, Degas, Pissarro) and works by the 'founders' of Modernism (Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne) round off the route through the Neue Pinakothek, which ends with paintings by the German Impressionists (Liebermann, Corinth, Slevogt) as well as examples of Pointillism, Symbolism and Art Nouveau.

Besides paintings, the Neue Pinakothek also exhibits sculpture of the relevant periods, including marbles by Canova and Thorvaldsen, and bronzes by Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol.