Bode Museum, Berlin

Bode Museum, Berlin

The Bode Museum on Berlin’s Museuminsel houses the Skulpturensammlung und Museum fur Byzantine Kunst (Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art) as well as part of the Munzkabinett numismatic collection. Originally the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, the Wilhelminian Baroque building was constructed in 1887 – 1904 to designs by Ernst Eberhard von Ihne.

The Bode Museum on Berlin’s Museuminsel houses the Skulpturensammlung und Museum fur Byzantine Kunst (Sculpture Collection and Museum of Byzantine Art) as well as part of the Munzkabinett numismatic collection.

Originally the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum, the Wilhelminian Baroque building was constructed in 1887 – 1904 to designs by Ernst Eberhard von Ihne. It was founded by art connoisseur Wilhelm von Bode to house paintings of the Gemaldegalerie (Old Master paintings) and sculptures of the Christian era.

The extensive Sculpture Collection displayed in the Bode Museum encompasses European works from the Early Middle Ages to the late 18^th century, Christian Orient art including Coptic, and works from Byzantium and Ravenna. Of particular note are works of Italian Renaissance including tin-glazed terracottas by Luca della Robbia and other works by Donatello and Settignano, German late Gothic works by Tilman Riemenschneider, and Prussian Baroque art up to the 18^th century.

The Bode Museum is best known for its Byzantine art collection, with over 150 paintings from the Late Antiquity and Byzantine period (3^rd to the 15^th century AD), from the Mediterranean region including Byzantine Constantinople, Greece, Turkey, Italy, and the Balkans to north African countries and Russia’s iconographic art. Items on display include Early Christian sarcophagi, tombstones, inscriptions, ivory reliefs, mosaics, icons, objects from daily life, and various liturgical objects.

The Bode Museum houses a large part of the Munzkabinett, an extraordinary collection of coins and other forms of currency from the 7^th century BC to the present day. See coins from ancient Greece, Roman, Middle Age European, and Oriental-Islamic coins, notes, medieval seals, casts, and various types of money used by primitive people.