Dahlem Museums

The Museum of Islamic Art, housed on the upper floor of the Dahlem Museums complex in Berlin, was founded in 1904 by Wilhelm von Bode and soon became the leading museum of its kind outside the Muslim world. The nucleus of the collection, which was split up during the Second World War, is now to be found in the Pergamon Museum on Museum Island.The Dahlem Museum contains sculpture and applied art from the beginning of the Islamic period (eighth C.), to the 18th C., covering not only the Muslim countries of the East but also India and Spain. The exhibits include metalwork, pottery, glass, knotted carpets, miniatures, fabrics, small items of furniture and books. These include a Holbein and Lotto carpet, 16th C., an embellished copy of the Koran and prayer niches, 16th C., Iranian stoneware, 14th C. and a Persian ceiling-painting, 1846.

The important collection of the Print and Engraving Cabinet of the Dahlem Museums complex in Berlin includes wood-cuts, etchings, engravings and lithographs of all European schools of the 15th-18th C., drawings (mainly 15th and 16th C. German masters), illustrated books and prints of the 15th-20th C. (including those by Dürer, Toulouse-Lautrec, Kirchner, Beckmann, Picasso, Giacometti and Kelly), incunabula, miniatures, individual pages and heraldic records. The principal items are Old German and Dutch drawings and prints (by Dürer, Grünewald, Holbein, Altdorfer, Brueghel, Rembrandt, Rubens and others).Items not on display can be seen in the study rooms. The Print and Engraving Cabinet also has an extensive photographic archive, including photos of items in other galleries and collections.

The collection of the Sculpture Gallery in Berlin's Dahlem Museums complex is displayed on the ground and upper floors and contains masterpieces of Western art from the Early Christian and Byzantine periods to the early 19th C. It includes icons, glass, textiles and goldsmith's work, bronzes, ivories and wood-carving of the third-seventh C., Italian and Spanish sculpture (Bernini, Donatello, von Leyden, Luca della Robbia, Rossellino, Sansovino, etc.) and works by Multscher, Riemenschneider, Münstermann, Bouchardon and other German and French sculptors.More sculptures are on display in the Bode Museum.

The Museum of Indian Art in Berlin's Dahlem Museums complex displays a unique range of material and should not be omitted in a visit to the Dahlem Museums. It is devoted to the art of India, Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Central Asia and includes, bronzes, woodcarving, painting, sculpture in stone, applied arts, frescoes and early Sanskrit manuscripts, a Turfan collection with wall-paintings, small sculptures and finds from Buddhist caves and open-air temples in Chinese Turkmenistan, dating from the fifth-10th C.

Opened in 1970, the collection of the Museum of East Asian Art in Berlin's Dahlem Museums complex covers the art of China, Korea and Japan from 3000 BC to the present day, including bronzes, ceramics, painting, woodcuts, sculpture, lacquer work, jade, grave furnishings and small sculptures (including 63 Chinese bronze mirrors, sixth-ninth C.; the throne of a Chinese emperor, 17th C.). The emphasis is on Chinese and Japanese mother-of-pearl inlay, colored lacquer work and East Asian wood carving. The museum of East Asian Art in Dahlem is complemented by a similar one in the Pergamon Museum.