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New Audio Tours for Children and Adults at the Gemäldegalerie – Also as an App

01.08.2025
Gemäldegalerie

The Gemäldegalerie (Old Master Paintings) is presenting a new audio tour (in German) for children at the start of the summer holiday. Young visitors can discover collection treasures together with Rubi the Rat and Kurtchen Stein, the caretaker. Actors Eva Meckbach and Milan Peschel provide voices for the texts. For adults, a new Highlight Tour, available in nine languages, showcases 25 masterpieces from al areas of the collections. In addition, all audio tours are available in the app stores.

New Gemäldegalerie Audio Guide for Children: Solving Riddles

For the first time, Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie is offering an audio guide especially for children aged six to twelve. In short and entertaining audio plays about selected masterpieces, young listeners meet the inquisitive, painting-loving rat Rubi and the grumpy but endearing caretaker Stein.

The pair takes children on a journey of discovery into the mysterious worlds of paintings and their histories. Children are also encouraged to participate as Rudi poses tricky riddles requiring them to look and listen carefully. Those who solve the puzzles can look forward to a small surprise at the end of their visit.

The stories were written by Anna Bilger and Vanessa Loewel (studiodrei, Berlin). Actor and radio play narrator Eva Meckback provides Rubi’s voice, while caretaker Stein is spoken with a touch of Berlin snark by actor and director Milan Peschel.

New in the Gemäldegalerie’s Audio Tour: Highlight Tour for Adults in Nine Languages

The Gemäldegalerie is now offering an audio tour covering its most important masterpieces in nine languages: German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish, Polish, Ukrainian and Korean.

The audio tour, lasting about an hour, provides visitors with fascinating insights into the meanings, backgrounds and details of 25 of the collection’s outstanding masterpieces – dating from the late Middle Ages to the Baroque period. The tour includes paintings by a wide range of artists, including Dürer, Holbein, Therbusch, Van Eyck, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Vermeer, as well as Botticelli, Raphael, Caravaggio, Titian and Watteau.

Two of the language versions were created in close collaboration with international partners:

• The Gemäldegalerie is the first museum in Berlin able to offer an audio tour in Korean, thanks to generous funding from the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Berlin.
• The Embassy of Ukraine in the Federal Republic of Germany has funded the translation into Ukrainian. The Ukrainian audio guide for the Gemäldegalerie was realised as part of an international project under the patronage of Olena Zelenska, wife of the Ukrainian president.

The Gemäldegalerie as an App for iOS and Android: Audio Tours Now Also Available at Home

The Gemäldegalerie audio tours are now available as apps for iOS from the App Store and for for Android from Google Play Store – offering a personalised art experience from the comforts of home. The new app provides a wide variety of stimulating content for adults, children and families:

• Visitors can discover more than 100 masterpieces and their histories in German, English, Italian and French.
• The new Highlight Tour in nine languages can be experienced in the app not only via audio but also through accompanying pictures and texts.
• Children can explore the world of the Old Masters together with Rubi the rat and Stein the caretaker, and solve puzzles along the way.
• Also available in the app are the "Sounding Images“, a musical and visual tour through the Christmas and Passion stories, developed in collaboration with the RIAS Kammerchor Berlin.

The new audio tours were made possible thanks to generous funding from the Fontana Foundation.