Collecting connects: collectors bring things together, take pleasure from the direct encounter with their own treasures and share this joy with kindred spirits. In keeping with this maxim, this summer the Kupferstich-Kabinett (Museum of Prints, Drawings and Photographs) offers visitors the opportunity to see high-profile Old Master drawings from the Henning Hoesch Collection, rarely on display. Selected sheets from the holdings of the Kupferstich-Kabinett join the guest drawings, establishing new relationships between objects.
Drawings by Italian masters from the 16th to the 18th centuries are complemented by works by other Europeans from this period. Fascinating yet little-known artists such as Michelangelo Anselmi are shown together with celebrated names, including Andrea Boscoli, Annibale, Agostino and Ludovico Carracci, Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, known as Guercino, Claude Lorrain, Pier Francesco Mola, Jacopo Palma il Giovane, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and the Zuccari brothers.
The exhibition allows viewers to peer over the shoulders of these artists and observe how they alternately sketch or carefully work through their ideas — whether figures, narrative scenes, or landscapes. The medium of drawing, which may involve pencil, pen or brush, offers a unique way to experience the process of creation up close, and in so doing to enter into a dialogue that spans centuries.
