The Gemäldegalerie (Old Masters Gallery) and Google Arts & Culture have been collaborating since 2011. With the Canvas Legends project, the partners are presenting a comprehensive digital re-presentation of works from the Gemäldegalerie. More than 1,100 masterpieces in its collection – from Botticelli and Dürer to Caravaggio, Rembrandt and Rubens – are available on the new theme page and via the Google Arts & Culture app.

The project combines technological innovation with curatorial expertise:

• Ultra-high resolution: More than 1,100 works from the Gemäldegalerie Collection have been digitised using Google Art Camera. The images reveal even the smallest details, including brushstrokes and craquelure.
• More than 50 new online exhibitions: In newly designed digital tours, Gemäldegalerie curators explain selected masterpieces in detail. A special highlight is Dagmar Hirschfield’s Director’s Choice. These stories are embedded in a narrative framework that arranges the works along the universal phases of human life – from childhood to death.
• The AI Experiment Mice in the Museum: An AI-supported audio tool serves as an innovative form of access. Conceived by the Arts & Culture Lab in Paris, two fictional mice engage in entertaining dialogue about individual works of art, playfully opening up new perspectives.

Partners since 2011

The Gemäldegalerie's comprehensive presence on Google Arts & Culture is the result of a long-standing collaboration. Back in 2011, when the platform was launched under the name Google Art Project, the Gemäldegalerie was among the first 17 participating museums from nine countries worldwide. This was followed by other institutions of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and participation in cross-institutional and international showcases:

• 2016: “Unseen Masterpieces” focusing on Pieter Brueghel the Elder, in collaboration with seven other museums.
• 2017: Virtual tour and three thematic online exhibitions for the show “Renaissance and Reformation: German Art in the Age of Dürer and Cranach,” which presented masterpieces from the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, and the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen München at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
• 2018: “Meet Vermeer” – Launch of the online platform for all surviving works by Vermeer, involving 18 cultural institutions from seven different countries, with three online exhibitions from the Gemäldegalerie.