Dulwich Picture Gallery
The Dulwich Picture Gallery is a picture gallery in Dulwich , London Borough of Southwark , which opened in 1817. The gallery building designed by Sir John Soane is the first functional building in the world that was designed and built directly as a museum.
Collection history
In 1790 the Polish King Stanislaus II August Poniatowski commissioned the two London-based art dealers Francis Bourgeois (1753–1811) and Noël Desenfans (1745–1807) to put together a royal collection. The two toured Europe for five years and bought an exquisite collection of 180 paintings together. However, their client no longer took over or paid for the collection after he abdicated as King of Poland in 1795 as a result of the Third Partition of Poland. Bourgeois and Desenfans tried in vain to sell the collection. They offered it u. a. to the Tsar of Russia and the British Government, but a sale did not take place. After Desenfans' death in 1807, Bourgeois became the sole owner of the collection and bequeathed it to Dulwich College for study purposes, on condition that a suitable building be built for it, for which he donated £ 10,000.
The collection of Bourgois and Desenfans is still the most important holdings of the museum today, although other donations and acquisitions were made. The main focus of the Gemäldegalerie is European art of the 17th and 18th centuries (including three paintings by Rembrandt .)
The museum building
With the support of Desenfans' widow Margaret (d. 1814), who contributed further financial resources, the English architect Sir John Soane (1753–1837) designed a simple, classicist building with skylights . On the central axis of the building there is a mausoleum in an extension designed as a central building , in which the sarcophagi of the three founders of the museum, Francis Bourgeois as well as Noël and Margaret Desenfans are located. Soane's architectural solution paved the way for gallery architecture.
Badly affected by German bombing raids in 1944, the building was restored after the war and reopened in 1953. In 1999 the Anglo-American architect Rick Mather , b. 1937, a modern extension into which a café, museum educational rooms, a lecture room and a new entrance to the cash register were integrated.
literature
- Giles Waterfield (Ed.): Collection for a King (Old Master Paintings from the Dulwich Picture Gallery). 1994.
- Richard Beresford: Dulwich Picture Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalog. 2002.
- Ian Dejardin: Dulwich Picture Gallery, Director's Choice. London 2009.
Web links
Coordinates: 51 ° 26 ′ 45.5 " N , 0 ° 5 ′ 10.8" W.