| Wallraf-Richartz-Museum &
Fondation Corboud
Collection
The Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud
– is one of the great traditional art galleries in Germany.
Medieval and early modern paintings from the period between 1250
and 1550 form the historic core of the museum’s collection.
The Baroque section with major works by Rubens, Rembrandt and
others and the 19th century section with paintings from the Romantic
period, Realism, Impressionism and Symbolism and a small collection
of sculpture are other important focal points of the collection.
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Stefan
Lochner (Hagnau, about 1400-1451 Cologne), Madonna in the
rose bower, oak, 50,5x40 cm, ca. 1450 |
In 2001 this section was extended and enhanced by
the Corboud Collection comprising 170 Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist
paintings. The museum also has a comprehensive collection of graphic
art comprising roughly 75,000 prints.
Art in Cologne occupies an outstanding position within German
medieval painting, not only as a result of the number of works
produced, but also as a result of its unique quality. With 290
paintings from medieval Cologne, the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum &
Fondation Corboud – has the most important collection of
medieval Cologne painting in the world including Stefan Lochner’s
“Weltgericht” (Judgement Day) and “Mutter Gottes
in der Rosenlaube” (Virgin in the Rose Arbour). The museum
thus offers the visitor an almost complete overview of the development
of Cologne panel painting from 1300-1550.
History
The Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corboud
– is the oldest Cologne museum and at the same time one
of the earliest civic museums in Germany. It originated with the
comprehensive estate of the scholar and collector Ferdinand Franz
Wallraf (1748-1824).
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Nikolas
Salm, Ferdinand Franz Wallraf amidst his collection, pencil,
plume, 63,7 x 49,1 cm |
The Cologne merchant Johann Heinrich Richartz (1795-1861),
who likewise gave his name to the museum, supported the first
public museum building which was opened in 1861. After the destruction
of the building in the Second World War the museum was housed
in 1957 in a new building designed by Rudolf Schwarz and Josef
Bernard.
After an interlude in a modern museum building between the Cathedral
and the Rhine which from1986 housed both the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum
and the Museum Ludwig, at the beginning of 2001 the museum moved
into a new building specially designed for the collection by Oswald
Mathias Ungers. A “permanent loan” of numerous Impressionist
and Post-Impressionist paintings by the Swiss collector Gerard
Corboud was made a short time later and this was given recognition
by his inclusion in the name of the museum. The new building in
the quarter between the town hall and Gürzenich stands on
an important site in the history of art: In the Middle Ages this
was the artistic centre of the cathedral city with the workshops
of the goldsmiths and painters of Cologne.
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, Madonna in the rose bower, oak, 50,5x40 cm, ca. 1450',''))
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