13.05.2022
Kupferstichkabinett
On 5 May 2022, a number of descendants of Ferdinand Bellermann (1814‒1889) visited the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin’s Kupferstichkabinett. Great-great-grandson Peter Bellermann travelled from America with his family to see the works of their famous ancestor.
Between 1840 and 1854, the Kupferstichkabinett assembled a so-called “Physiognomic Collection of Nature Pictures”. Alongside works by Bellermann, this collection includes works by Eduard Hildebrandt and Johann Moritz Rugendas. Peter Bellermann expressed his gratitude to the museum for having preserved Bellermann’s works from his Venezuela trip between 1842 and 1845, together with these other artists from Alexander von Humboldt’s circle, for what is now some 170 years.
In a conversation with Dagmar Korbacher, Director of the Kupferstichkabinett, and Anna Pfäfflin, curator of 19th-century art, Peter Bellmann said that it was particularly important to him to pass on an appreciation of Ferdinand Bellermann’s art to his children. The Bellermann family enjoyed their time in the Kupferstichkabinett’s study room, where they were able to pore over the more than 250 works by Bellermann that are held in the collection of the Kupferstichkabinett.
