How do we see ourselves – and how did people in different historical periods  want to be seen? The special exhibition Portraits! Surprising Encounters from Botticelli to Lempicka  at the Gemäldegalerie (Old Masters Gallery) ‒ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, invites viewers on a fascinating journey through the history of portraiture. Unusual juxtapositions of works spanning five centuries reveal striking similarities, bringing the works alive and providing opportunities to reflect on presentations by self and others, staging, roles, and character. Masterpieces by artists such as Botticelli and Lempicka, Mino da Fiesole and Rogier van der Weyden, Dürer and Giorgione, or Rubens and Gainsborough come into direct contact with one another.

In this fascinating exhibition, portraits from different centuries, regions and cultures come together in pairs and begin a  dialogue with one another. Works that have never “met” before face each other for the first time, offering a fresh perspective on aspects such as identity, beauty, status and power. The new pairings challenge not only familiar narratives of art history, but also make visible how closely individual representation and social order are interlinked. Portraits are more than just images of people’s outer appearance. They also reveal details about  self-awareness and character, emotion and staged representation. Clothing, posture, and accessories are codes of social, political and gender affiliation.

Portraits have been and remain powerful means of social representation. Through the comparison of portraits from diverse regions and eras, visitors can perceive, trace, and comprehend artistic decisions and visual strategies. These surprising encounters between the works reveal differences in their simultaneity and similarities in their non-simultaneity.

80 Masterpieces in Four Exhibition Sections

The exhibition’s starting point is the outstanding international collection of portraits at the Gemäldegalerie, enhanced by a selection of loans from other museums of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – including the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) and the Neue Nationalgalerie (New National Gallery), the Ägyptisches Museum (Egyptian Museum) and the Skulpturensammlung (Sculpture Collection). It presents a multifaceted panorama of portraiture from the 15th to the 20th centuries.

Some 80 masterworks by artists such as Petrus Christus, Mino da Fiesole, Botticelli, Giorgione, Dürer, Cranach the Elder, Holbein the Younger, Tizian, Sofonisba Anguissola, Rembrandt, Zurbarán, Anna Dorothea Therbusch, and Tamara de Lempicka encompass a wide variety of portraiture’s diverse aspects – ranging from glorious portraits of rulers to intimate scenes of friendship and proud self-proclamations. Each encounter tells its own story; and each of them invites wonder, comparison and discovery.

Various forms and functions of portraits are examined in the four sections of the exhibition. A prologue refers to the astonishing constancy of mimetic portrait art spanning many centuries and also sheds light on the genre’s roots in Europe.

Portrait Types North and South of the Alps

This section traces the development of portraiture in Italy and the North during the Renaissance. Various prototypes, for example the northern three-quarter profile used by Rogier van der Weyden and the strict profile preferred by Filippo Lippi, as well as the differing tendencies towards naturalism and idealization, soon mingled and influenced the development of portrait painting in the following centuries.

Self-Representation of the Elite

Portraits were a powerful means of social representation and distinction. Clothing, poses, and also the sheer size of a work revealed  the aspirations and status of the person depicted. Anthonis Mor’s knee-length, prestigious portrait of the Duchess Margaret of Parma, with her regal gaze, appears on par with Giambattista Moroni’s nobleman Don Gabriel de la Cueva.

Family, Friendship and Intimacy

The section on family, friendship and intimacy, on the other hand, is dedicated to the private aspects of portraiture. Relatives, close friends, and loved ones are captured in images that serve as personal mementos: Sofonisba Anguissola’s mother Bianca engages with her daughter as she paints in a similar familiar manner as the wife of painter Eugen Spiro looked at her husband 380 years later. Portraits of the dead capture a final glimpse of the deceased.

Portraits of Art Collectors and Artists

The final section of the exhibition focuses on portraits of art collectors and artists. For centuries, self-portraits have served not only self-exploration, but also the positioning of oneself and one’s work within traditional contexts. Titian and Therbusch wear silk garments, drawing attention to their elevated social status. In contrast, Rembrandt and Anton Graff depict themselves in the moment of spontaneous self-recognition.

Self-Reflections in the Age of Selfies

Portraits! is more than an art historical exhibition; it also holds up a mirror to our current world of images. How do we construct identity in the age of selfies and social media? How do we read faces? And what does our view reveal about ourselves? Nowhere can these current questions be better studied and understood than in the reflection of masterworks from the past.

Exhibition Catalogue

A richly illustrated catalogue offers a more in-depth look at the works and their mutual relationships.

Curatorial Team

The exhibition is curated by Sven Jakstat and Stephan Kemperdick, with the assistance of Marie-Luise Hugler.

A special exhibition of the Gemäldegalerie ‒ Staatliche Museen zu Berlin