Events/Openings

Expert talk
10.04.2013, 7 p.m.
Free admission

The collection of August the Strong
with Prof. Dr. Dirk Syndram, director of the Grünes Gewölbe and deputy general director of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and Georg Laue, art historian and dealer.

When Duke Frederick Augustus I of Saxony became King of Poland in 1697, one of Europe’s most important collectors of Baroque art was elevated to the status of a European monarch. Over the 36 years of his reign, the act of collecting art, as once cultivated by the Medicis before him, became a sign of royalty. Many of the museums that exist in Dresden today were founded by this well-known king, known today as Augustus the Strong. These institutions include the Gemäldegalerie, the Sculpture Collection, the Porcelain Collection, the Kupferstichkabinett, the Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments and the Grünes Gewölbe, housed in his former palace. Augustus created a magnificent and unique collection of late Baroque art that has been largely preserved intact. Today it is one of the oldest collections in Europe open to the public in the context of a museum. The talk discusses the presentation of the collection, its contents, and the intentions behind the king’s art collecting activities.