Porträts!

Unusual juxtapositions of works from five centuries reveal astonishing commonalities, bring the works to life in a new way, and offer the opportunity to reflect on self-representation and the portrayal of others, staging, role, and character. Masterpieces by painters such as Botticelli and Lempicka, Dürer and Giorgione, or Rembrandt and Lepsius meet.

The unique concept:

Portraits from different centuries, regions, and cultures come together in pairs and engage in a dialogue.
Works that have never met before are presented together for the first time in this exhibition, enabling a fresh exploration of aspects such as identity, beauty, status, and power. The new constellations not only challenge familiar narratives of art history, but also reveal how closely individual representation and social order are intertwined. Portraits are more than just depictions of people's physical appearance. They speak of self-image and character, of emotion and staging. Clothing, posture, and accessories are codes of social, political, or gender affiliation.


Portraits have been and remain a powerful means of social representation. By juxtaposing images from different regions and periods, artistic decisions and visual strategies become immediately comprehensible and understandable to visitors. In the surprising encounters between the works, differences in simultaneity are revealed, as are commonalities in asynchronous development.

Around 80 Masterpieces in Four Exhibition Chapters

The exhibition's starting point is the Gemäldegalerie's internationally renowned collection of portraits, complemented by selected loans from other institutions within the National Museums in Berlin—including the Alte Nationalgalerie, the Neue Nationalgalerie, the Egyptian Museum, and the Sculpture Collection. This creates a multifaceted panorama of portraiture from the 15th to the 20th century.


Around 80 masterpieces by artists such as Petrus Christus, Botticelli, Giorgione, Dürer, Cranach the Elder, Holbein the Younger, Sofonisba Anguissola, Rembrandt, Zurbarán, Anna Dorothea Therbusch, Lovis Corinth, Sabine Lepsius, and Tamara de Lempicka showcase a wide range of aspects of portraiture—from magnificent portraits of rulers to intimate portraits of friends and proud self-portraits. Each encounter tells its own story, each juxtaposition invites wonder, comparison, and discovery.


In four exhibition chapters, various forms and functions of portraiture are examined. A prologue highlights the remarkable, centuries-spanning constants of mimetic portraiture and also illuminates the genre's roots in Europe.

Portrait Types on Both Sides of the Alps

This chapter traces the development of portraiture in Italy and the North during the Renaissance. Various basic types, such as the northern three-quarter profile in the work of Rogier van der Weyden and the strict profile in the work of Filippo Lippi, as well as the differing tendencies toward naturalism and idealization, soon intertwined and shaped the development of portraiture in the following centuries.

Self-Representation of the Elite

Portraits were a powerful means of social representation and distinction. Clothing, poses, and even the sheer size of a depiction conveyed the sitter's aspirations and status. Anthonis Mor's Duchess Margaret of Parma appears in a representative half-length portrait with a commanding gaze, as does Moroni's nobleman Don Gabriel de la Cueva.

Family, Friendship, and Intimacy

In contrast, the chapter on family, friendship, and intimacy focuses on the private aspects of portraiture. Relatives, close friends, and loved ones are captured in images that serve as personal remembrance—Sofonisba Anguissola's mother, Bianca, gazes at her painting daughter with the same familiarity as, 380 years later, the wife of the painter Eugen Spiro gazes at her husband. Portraits of the dead capture the final glimpse of the deceased.

Portraits of Art Collectors and Artists

In a concluding chapter, portraits of art collectors and artists are examined. Self-portraits have served for centuries as a means of self-exploration, but also as a way of situating oneself and one's work within a broader context.