The Bode-Museum (English: ''Bode Museum''), formerly called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum (''Emperor Frederick Museum''), is a listed building on the

Museum Island The Museum Island (german: Museumsinsel) is a museum complex on the northern part of the Spree Island in the historic heart of Berlin. It is one of the most visited sights of Germany's capital and one of the most important museum sites in Europ ...

in the historic centre of Berlin. It was built from 1898 to 1904 by order of German Emperor William II according to plans by Ernst von Ihne in Baroque Revival style. The building's front square featured a memorial to German Emperor Frederick III, which was destroyed by the East German authorities. Currently, the Bode-Museum is home to the Skulpturensammlung, the Museum für Byzantinische Kunst and the Münzkabinett (sculpture, coins and medals, and Byzantine art). As part of the Museum Island complex, the Bode-Museum was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1999 because of its outstanding architecture and testimony to the development of museums as a cultural phenomenon in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

History and collections

Originally called the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum after Emperor Frederick III, the museum was renamed in honor of its first curator, Wilhelm von Bode, in 1956. During World War II, portions of the collection were stored in an antiaircraft tower called the Flakturm Friedrichshain for safe keeping. In May 1945, several fires destroyed some of the collections. In total, more than 400 paintings and about 300 sculptures were missing due to looting during the fire or destroyed in the fire itself. Closed for repairs since 1997, the museum was reopened on 18 October 2006, after a €156 million refurbishment. True to the ethos of its founding director, Wilhelm von Bode, who believed in mixing art collections,Alan Riding (27 November 2006)
German Museums Move Closer to Reunification
'' The New York Times''. it is now the home for a collection of sculptures, Byzantine art, and coins and medals. The presentation of the collections is both geographic and chronological, with the Byzantine and Gothic art of northern and southern Europe displayed separately on the museum's first floor and a similar regional division of Renaissance and Baroque art on its second floor. Botticelli madonna DLI 14105010920

] The sculpture collection displays artwork of the Eastern Christianity, Christian Orient (with an emphasis on

Coptic Coptic may refer to: Afro-Asia * Copts, an ethnoreligious group mainly in the area of modern Egypt but also in Sudan and Libya * Coptic language, a Northern Afro-Asiatic language spoken in Egypt until at least the 17th century * Coptic alphabet ...

Egypt), sculptures from

Byzantium Byzantium () or Byzantion ( grc, Βυζάντιον) was an ancient Greek city in classical antiquity that became known as Constantinople in late antiquity and Istanbul today. The Greek name ''Byzantion'' and its Latinization ''Byzantium'' cont ...

and Ravenna, sculptures of the Middle Ages, the Italian

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

, and the early Renaissance, including the controversial '' Flora'' attributed by Bode to Leonardo da Vinci but now widely argued to be a 19th-century work. Late German Gothic works are also represented by

Tilman Riemenschneider Tilman Riemenschneider (c. 1460 – 7 July 1531) was a German sculptor and woodcarver active in Würzburg from 1483. He was one of the most prolific and versatile sculptors of the transition period between late Gothic and Renaissance, a master i ...

, the south German Renaissance, and Prussian Baroque art up to the 18th century. In the future selected works of the Gemäldegalerie will be integrated into the sculpture collection. This is reminiscent of William von Bode's concept of "style rooms", in which sculptures, paintings, and crafts are viewed together, as was usual in upper middle-class private collections. The ''Münzkabinett'' ("coin cabinet") is one of the world's largest

numismatic Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...

collections. Its range spans from the beginning of minting in the 7th century BC in Asia Minor up to the present day. With approximately 500,000 items, the collection is a unique archive for historical research, while its medal collection also makes it an important art exhibition. Writing in '' The Financial Times'' on the occasion on the museum's reopening in 2006,

Neil MacGregor Robert Neil MacGregor (born 16 June 1946) is a British art historian and former museum director. He was editor of the ''The Burlington Magazine, Burlington Magazine'' from 1981 to 1987, then Director of the National Gallery, London, from 1987 ...

, director of the British Museum, hailed “the most comprehensive display of European sculpture anywhere.” He added: “It is no exaggeration to say that in the new Bode Museum, Europe will be able for the first time to read its history — aesthetic and religious, intellectual and political — in a three-dimensional form.”

Canadian gold coin theft

1905 Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum Monbijoubruecke

On 27 March 2017, a solid gold coin called the Big Maple Leaf, issued by the Royal Canadian Mint in 2007 as a commemorative piece, was stolen from the museum. The coin, at 50 cm in diameter and 2.8 cm in thickness, is made of 24-karat gold and is worth around

€ The euro sign () is the currency sign used for the euro, the official currency of the eurozone and unilaterally adopted by Kosovo and Montenegro. The design was presented to the public by the European Commission on 12 December 1996. It consists o ...

3.7 million. A ladder was found on the train tracks nearby, leading German police to speculate that the thief entered the building by breaking open a window in the back of the museum next to the railway tracks. The thieves were later found to be 21and 23-year-old cousins Ahmed and Wissam Remmo, along with their friend Denis W. Police don't expect to ever recover the coin, as the presence of gold dust leads them to believe the culprits had melted it down. Ahmed's brother Wayci was also charged, but later acquitted.

Pop culture

The museum appears as a playable level in the World War II video game '' Sniper Elite V2''.

Gallery

File:Bode Museum at night (MK).jpg, At night File:Bodemuseumfoyer.jpg, The entrance hall File:Bodemuseum panoramic.jpg, The cupola File:Bodemuseum – Byzantinische Kunst.jpg, Byzantine collection File:Bodemuseum trecento.jpg, Trecento room Image:Bundesarchiv Bild 183-12947-0003, Berlin, Bodemuseum, Pergamonmuseum.jpg,

with Pergamon Museum and Bode Museum (1951) File:Bode-Museum von der Spree.jpg, Bode-Museum, Berlin von der Spree. File:Bode bridge view.jpg, View from the Bode Museum bridge on to the river Bode Museum Black and White

References

External links