Berlin - Bode Museum

(Local Name: Bodemuseum) The Bode Museum, at the northern end of Museum Island in Berlin's Mitte district, is in the old museum center of Berlin. Frederick William IV saw the island in the River Spree as a "Sanctuary of Art and Science".

When it opened in 1904 it was known as the Emperor Frederick Museum. In 1956 it was renamed in honor of its founder Wilhelm von Bode (1845-1929), who managed the collection from 1872 to 1929, and while Director of the Berlin Museums from 1906 to 1920 played a great part in developing and enlarging it. The Neo-Baroque building which houses the museum was erected in 1897-1904 by Ernst von Ihne. On its original base in the Great Dome over the stairwell stands a bronze cast of Schlüter's statue of the Great Elector on horseback, which once stood on the Long Bridge (now the Rathaus Bridge in the Nicolai Quarter). The four large sandstone figures in the entrance hall were sculpted by Schlüter in 1712 for the Kamecke country house, which was destroyed in the Second World War. In the Little Dome are two groups by the sculptor Adriaen de Vries. The Bode Museum comprises the Egyptian Museum, the Papyrus Collection, the Museum of Late Ancient and Byzantine Art, the Sculpture Collection, the Picture Gallery, the Museum of Prehistory, the Children's Gallery and the extensive Cabinet of Coins and Medals.