Visit the Gemäldegalerie (Old Masters Paintings Gallery) Art Museum in Berlin

The Gemäldegalerie (Paintings Gallery) in Berlin is a top art museum to visit in Germany and one of the best Old Masters collections in the world.

The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin is one of the best art museums in the world. The gallery covers European paintings from the 13th to late 18th century with well over a thousand Old Master’s works on display at any given time. The collection is particularly strong on early German and Dutch paintings, Italian Renaissance paintings, and Dutch paintings of the 17th century. It famously has 16 Rembrandts, two Vermeers, a scandalous cupid by Caravaggio, and a superb collection of Italian Renaissance works. Sections of this art museum will be closed in turn until late 2023. Buy Gemäldegalerie tickets online to skip the line and enter the gallery directly.

See Update for Opening Hours of the Berlin State Museums (2023) for the latest information.

Gemäldegalerie Art Museum in Berlin

The name Gemäldegalerie is deceptively simple — it simply means paintings gallery. The fuller name Die Gemäldegalerie der Staatlichen Museen zu Berlin simply translates as the Paintings Gallery of the State (National) Museums in Berlin (SMB) but art lovers’ eyes are sparkling. Although it is not obvious from the name alone, this is one of the finest collections of European Old Master’s paintings in the world.

The Gemäldegalerie is home to the European paintings collection of the SMB from the 13th century to around 1800. The paintings were systematically acquired using scientific methodology with art historical development and quality in mind.

The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin is currently the depository for 3,500 paintings and 3,000 historic frames. Despite these numbers, it is quality more than quantity that impresses when visiting the museum.

Other major art museums in Berlin include the Alte Nationalgalerie (19th-century art), the Neue Nationalgalerie (modern art up to 1970), and the Hamburger Bahnhof (contemporary art).

Permanent Exhibitions in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin

Around 1,300 paintings are on permanent display in the Gemäldegalerie with temporary exhibitions often adding many more. The focal points of the collection are Italian art from the 13th to 17th centuries and early German masters but all genres and regions of European paintings are covered. The collection of Dutch masters from the 15th to 17th century might be the most important in the world.

The French, Spanish, and English works are generally not of the same quality as the Italian, Dutch, and German works and relatively few works from these countries are on display. Although small, the English collection is the most comprehensive in Germany.

The permanent collection is exhibited in 18 main halls and around 40 cabinets (smaller rooms). Some of the best works are in the smaller rooms.

Following the hall numbering system, the collection may be divided into the following periods:

• German paintings of the 13th to 16th centuries
• Netherlandish paintings of the 13th to 16th centuries
• Flemish and Dutch paintings of the 17th centuries
• English and German paintings of the 18th century
• Italian, French, and Spanish paintings from the 17th and 18th centuries
• Italian Paintings of the 16th century
• Italian paintings of the 13th to 15th centuries

Seeing the gallery in the reverse order is also popular, although one-way systems are at times necessary and usually guide visitors to the German old masters first.

Strategies and Tips for Visiting the Gemäldegalerie

Spending ten seconds with each work on display in the Gemäldegalerie will stretch a visit to well over three hours. No one could manage to see all the paintings in a single visit making it a good strategy to visit again (and again, it is always worth it). Expect to be too exhausted to fully appreciate the last sections visited.

On a first visit, concentrate on the main works. These are scattered throughout the museum but the free audioguide gives at least a strong indication of which works the museum curators consider the most significant. 

In addition to the absolute highlights, it may be sensible to concentrate only on a smaller section of the museum, or even only a few rooms. The details in some paintings are incredible and only revealed when studied close up.

Visiting only the main halls (with Roman numerals) might seem a good idea but it is a false strategy — some of the top works are on display in the cabinets (smaller rooms with regular Arabic numbers). This is especially the case in the German and Dutch sections where excellent works are often in a smaller format, as they were painted for the homes rather than palaces of the rich.

Descriptions of Top Paintings

The descriptions in the museum are mostly in German only but are often so cryptic (painter, date, name of work) that it hardly matters. The free audio guide is a great help but there are always some works not covered that certainly have good stories to tell too. The museum shop has excellent guide books but many works are well described on the internet too. (The museum offers free wifi.)

The Berlin State Museums have a wonderful digital online collections database of many of its works. Searches are possible in English with English descriptions of works often following after the German. For the Gemäldegalerie, 70 works are currently described in the highlights section or 1486 in the “all objects” option. The catalog could help in advance in deciding which works to see, or inside the museum to read up on the details of the paintings and the painters. If inside the museum, simply search with the catalog number (Kat. Nr.) on the name tags.

Gemäldegalerie: 200 Masterpieces of European Painting is a beautiful book (but heavy and pricy) — much of the information in the book is available for free when searching the online catalog of the Gemäldegalerie.

Highlights of the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin

Absolute highlights of the Gemäldegalerie include:

• 16 paintings by Rembrandt and several more by his workshop and influence circle.
• 2 paintings by Jan Vermeer.
• Caravaggio’s Amor Victorious — the most scandalous and possibly best-known painting in the museum.
• Works by all the German Old Masters, including multiple by Lucas Cranach (22), Albrecht Dürer (7), Hans Holbein (2 by The Elder and 5 by The Younger).
• Works by Dutch and Flemish masters including various by Pieter Brueghel (2), Jan Van Eyck (3), Petrus Christus (4). Rogier van der Weyden (3 altars and other works), Anton van Dyck (7), Rubens (7), Frans Hals, Jan Steen, Jan Van Goyen, and the extended Brueghel family.
• Works by Italian artists as diverse as Giotto, Botticelli, Raffael, Titian (Tizian), Caravaggio, and Canaletto. 

See also Highlights of the Gemäldegalerie and the Italian Collections for more photos and descriptions of favorite paintings.

Of course not all the paintings are permanently on display but the museum is physically big — simply walking through the museum is a 2 km hike (well over a mile). Visitors starting at the Old German painters will be exhausted when exiting via the Italian early Renaissance, and vice versa. 

Visit Temporary Exhibitions in the Gemäldegalerie in Berlin

The Gemäldegalerie website has a special section “Collection on Tour” — this is not a traveling exhibition arranged by the museum but rather a list of the major works currently on loan to other galleries. An art museum that lends out at the same time works by Botticelli, Vermeer, Rembrandt, Titian, Holbein, and Dürer to museums all over the world, not only clearly has a major collection but could borrow similar works in return.

There are no half measures when the Gemäldegalerie stages temporary exhibitions. Special exhibitions are usually held in the central hall (Wandelhalle) — a very large space in the center of the museum. Surcharges and separate time-slot reservations sometimes apply. The Mantegna and Bellini exhibition in 2019 drew around 200,000 visitors in four months. 

See Special Exhibitions in the Kulturforum in 2022 for more information on planned temporary exhibitions. 

Visitors Information for the National Gallery in Berlin

Gemäldegalerie Gallery Closures in 2022 and 2023

The Gemäldegalerie is installing a new lighting system and until late 2023, around a quarter of the museum will be closed at any given time. Top works from the closed halls will be on display temporarily in different rooms in the museum.

The current closures planning schedule is as follows:

• 25 October 2021 to 2 April 2022 — Dutch paintings of the 16th century, Flemish and Dutch paintings of the 17th century (Hall VI to IX, Cabinets 6 – 15)
• 19 April 2022 to 1 October 2022 — Rembrandt and 18th-century European paintings (Hall X-XIV, Cabinets 16 – 26)
• 4 October 2022 to 11 March 2023 — German and Dutch paintings from the 13th to 16th centuries (Hall I – V, Cabinet 1 – 5)
• 13 March 2023 to 16 September 2023 — Italian paintings from the 13th to 16th centuries (Hall XV – XVIII, Cabinet 29 – 41)

Berlin’s timing on renovation works is not exactly 100%, so do make inquiries if keen on seeing a specific section. Ticket prices were reduced but with close to a thousand paintings still on display, it remains a hard slog to see them all.

Opening Hours of the Gemäldegalerie

The Gemäldegalerie in Berlin is open Monday to Friday from 10:00 to 18:00 and Saturday and Sunday from 11:00 to 18:00. Longer opening hours until 20:00 on Thursday might return in 2022 but no date has been set.

Tickets for the Gemäldegalerie

Ticket prices for the Gemäldegalerie were lowered to €8 (from the regular €10) while parts of the art museum are closed for the installation of a new lighting system. Buy tickets online in advance — skip the ticket counter queue (but do pick up the free audio guide) and proceed directly to the museum entrance. 

Admission is free for under 18-year-olds and bearers of the superb value 3-day Museum Pass Berlin.

Transportation to the Gemäldegalerie

The Gemäldegalerie is at the heart of the Kulturforum near the Sony Center and Potsdamer Platz to the south of Tiergarten in central Berlin. 

The closest bus stop is Philharmonie / Philharmonie-Süd (buses 200, 300, M41) while Kulturforum (buses M48 & M85) and Potsdamer Brücke (M29) are also convenient on major bus lines. The closest U-Bahn and S-Banh station is Potsdamer Platz — from here take any of the buses listed above, or simply walk.

The main Kulturforum building was only completed in 1998. The area is a bit drab and grey on the outside but a great space for exhibiting art (in contrast to the nearby Neue Nationalgalerie designed by Mies van der Rohe). The construction on the site between the Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, and the Philharmonie is for a new modern art museum for 20th-century art.

→  See also: Highlights in the Gemäldegalerie and the Italian Collections in the Paintings Gallery for some of the most popular works in the museum.

Gemäldegalerie: 200 Masterpieces of European Painting is a beautiful book (but heavy and pricy) — much of the information in the book is available for free when searching the online catalog of the Gemäldegalerie.

More on the Berlin State Museums (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)

Note: Most Berlin museums and similar sights are open in 2023. Timeslot reservations are essential for only the Alte Nationalgalerie, Gemäldegalerie, Neue Nationalgalerie, Neues Museum, Pergamon Museum (closed from 23 Oct 2023 until 2027!), and Das Panorama. Timeslots are released only around four weeks in advance. Tickets are available from GetYourGuide that seem to have timeslots available when SMB has already sold out — many passes or multi-museum tickets are again available. Individual museum ticket prices range from €6 to €14 (€20 for special exhibitions). Online tickets are skip-the-line — go directly to the gallery entrance to scan the code.

For more general information on the Berlin State Museums:

• Top National Museums and Galleries in Berlin (brief overview)
• Berlin State Museums: What Is Seen Where? (a short description of the collections in the different museums)
• Opening Hours of Berlin State Museums (2023).
• Ticket Prices for Berlin State Museums (prices for museums, temporary exhibitions, combination tickets, online time-slot reservations). Buying online from GetYourGuide is a lot simpler and costs the same as the official museum website. Timeslot reservations are essential for the most popular museums!
• Save with the Berlin Museum Pass – 30 museums (including all the SMB museums) in three days for €32 – a fantastic savings deal.
• Staatliche Museen zu Berlin (official website in German & English).

News & Temporary Exhibitions:

• Top Special Temporary Exhibitions in 2023 — overview, in the Kulturforum, in the Neue Nationalgalerie, on Museum Island, and the Museum of Photography.
• Both the Ethnological and Asian Art museums in the Humboldt Forum (Berlin Schloss) are now fully open — admission to both is still free and currently without the need to book a timeslot.
• The Gemäldegallerie is partly closed until September 2023 but at least 75% is open at any given time.
• The Pergamon Museum will be closed completely from 23 October 2023 and partly reopen only in spring 2027 (with the rest to follow by the mid to late 2030s).

More Museums Reviews and Museum-Specific Information:

• Alte Nationalgalerie with Caspar David Friedrich paintings.
• Altes Museum with Greek, Etruscan, and Roman art.
• Ethnological and Asian Art Museums in the Humboldtforum.
• Friedrichswerdersche Kirche (free admission) with a collection of 19th-century German sculptures.
• Gemäldegalerie with its collection of German and Dutch Old Masters and Italian paintings.
• Kunstgewerbemuseum (Decorative Arts)
• Musical Instruments Museum near the Berliner Philharmonie.
• Neue Nationalgalerie with early 20th-century art and Alexander Calder exhibitions.
• Neues Museum with bust of Nefertiti.
• Pergamon Museum with Ishtar Gate — the whole Pergamonmuseum will be closed from 23 October 2023 until 2027.
• Pergamon Museum Panorama Exhibition with Asisi panoramic painting and Greek statues.
• Photography — Helmut Newton collection and historic photos.

Previous Temporary Exhibitions:

• Top Special Temporary Exhibitions in 2022 — overview, in the Kulturforum (David Hockney), in the Neue Nationalgalerie, on Museumsinsel, Hamburger Bahnhof contemporary art, and the Museum of Photography.
• Top Special Temporary Exhibitions in 2021 — including the reopening of the Neue Nationalgalerie, as well as the Ethnological and Asian Art Museums in the Humboldt Forum.
• Top Special Exhibitions in 2020: Highlights, in Kulturforum, on Museum Island, in the Hamburger Bahnhof, smaller museums, and the opening of the Humboldt Forum in December.