Cities & Culture

Zwinger Palace and Old Masters Gallery Dresden

The Old Masters Gallery is located in one of the foremost Late-Baroque buildings and is home to paintings from the 15th to 18th centuries making up one of the most prestigious art collections in the world.

The Zwinger Palace would have once been used as a venue for court festivities and even in those days its buildings housed the Electoral art collections, library, Old Masters Gallery, armoury, porcelain collection, zoology museum and Royal Cabinet of Mathematical and Physical Instruments. Elector Friedrich I commissioned the build, hoping to create something of benefit to the nobility and court society. That's why he filled the Zwinger Palace Gardens with exotic plants.

Although the Zwinger Palace was built in 1709, it wasn't completed until 1847, when Gottfried Semper added an art gallery to the Elbe-side of the building. And so the Semper Gallery was born and with it the Old Masters Gallery. Visitors can now admire masterpieces by Raffael, Giorgione, Tizian, Rubens, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Dürer, Cranach, Canaletto and Silvestre. The Zwinger Palace is also home to further world-class museums.

Explore the surroundings