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Two new donations go on display at the Neues Museum

22.03.2018
Neues Museum

The recent temporary closure of the Neues Museum has allowed the Ägyptisches Museum and Papyrussammlung to prepare some new displays for the reopening on 22 March 2018.

In the central area of the lower ground floor, where tour groups meet, visitors will now be given a flavour of what awaits them on the “Archaeological Promenade”.  A model pyramid and two newly designed display cases about kingship in the pyramid era have been installed. The “Archaeological Promenade” links the adjacent galleries: the Greek Courtyard and the Egyptian Courtyard.

In the Mythological Room, the first room on the tour of the ground floor, visitors will encounter two new items which have recently been generously donated to the museum and which are closely related to the room’s main theme – that is, the history of the collection itself:

Ruins of the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut by Ernst Koerner

The first gift is the impressive oil painting, from 1887, by Ernst Koerner (1846–1927) entitled Ruinen des Tempels der Königin Hatschepsut (Ruins of the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut), which was generously left to the Ägyptisches Museum in summer 2016 by the great-grandson of the artist, Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. E.F.K. Koerner. To put this important gift in context, two display cases in the Mythological Room have been filled with finds from the Temple of Hatshepsut.

James Simon in His Study by Ernst Oppler

The second donation – on view to the public for the first time – is also an oil painting. It is a portrait of the great, unforgotten patron of the Berlin museums, James Simon (1851–1932), seen in his study at no. 15 Tiergartenstrasse around 1904. The painting, by Ernst Oppler (1867–1929), was left to the Ägyptisches Museum in 2016 by David Westphal, the great-grandson of James Simon, as a token of Simon’s close relationship with the museum. This treasure, which will be on display in future in the James-Simon-Galerie, is also set in context by other objects which were once personally owned by James Simon and have now been gifted to the museum.