Category Archives: Stories

Travellers’ stories at the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden

Travellers’ stories at the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden

From 8 July to 8 October 2023, the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden presents the exhibition “Connecting Worlds. Artists & Journeys“.

Source: Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden · Image: Carlo Labruzzi, “The Colosseum from the Palatine Hill, Rome”, early 1760s or 1770s.

Connecting Worlds. Artists & Travels” presents some 100 works depicting travel experiences of different artists from the Renaissance to the 19th century, and includes such well-known names as Albrecht Dürer, Hans Holbein the Younger and Peter Bruegel the Elder.

The exhibition is divided into three sections: “On the Road” (featuring mainly sketches taken by artists during their travels), “Destination Rome” (showing how Rome was for centuries the main destination for artists from all over Europe) and “Dresden“. On the exhibition website, the Kupferstich-Kabinett explains: “Upon returning to their homelands, artists often used their drawings as the source for prints and paintings, thereby disseminating knowledge of their experience to a wider audience. The exhibition ends with Dresden under Augustus the Strong, a center of glamorous festivities, ambitiously competing with other international courts. This last chapter of the exhibition explores a different kind of travel through images and stories of landscapes, plants, animals, and cultures previously unknown in Europe that were brought back by courtly and military expeditions. The visual recordings of distant worlds in books and prints allowed for imaginary travel and enabled a sense of connectivity with places and people from near and far.

About the Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden

With a collection of more than half a million works, the Kupferstich-Kabinett is one of Germany’s leading art institutions, and includes drawings and prints by artists such as Jan van Eyck, Albrecht Dürer, Michelangelo, Rembrandt and Francisco de Goya. Since 2004, the museum has been housed in Dresden Castle.

Related content