For the past 25 years Dresden has been restoring the beautiful palaces of the Dresden State Art Collections, all aimed at restoring the old town of Dresden to its former glory. Brought to its peak by Augustus the Strong during the early 1700’s, today a significant portion of the State Art Collections of Dresden are house in two buildings, the Zwinger Museum and the Royal Palace.
One of the most recently completed restorations is the Long Corridor in the Residential Palace, which is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture in Saxony and home to one of the finest collections of firearms in Europe. With the restoration, a selection of about 500 of the most magnificent firearms of the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries of the Saxon electors (the Wettin Dynasty) is now on display again in the palace. Shot guns, rifles, and pistols from all over Europe are exhibited in showcases modeled on the historical cabinets.
Dresden does not rest on its past however, the city’s many museums and galleries as well as the State Art Collections of Dresden are constantly coming up with new exhibitions. One example is the “Artists’ Conquest” which is a new exhibition series where contemporary artists create surprise encounters for visitors in the historic and culturally significant buildings of Pillnitz Palace. Another is the upcoming exhibit from the world-renown Banksy, that runs until Jan. 9, 2022. Banksy, a Bristol-born and anonymous graffiti artist and painter, will have more than 100 works including graffiti, photographs, sculptures, video installations and prints available for this show.
In addition, Dresden’s Albertinum: “Dreams of Freedom – the Romantic in Russia and Germany” is an upcoming exhibition on Romantic paintings, including outstanding masterpieces by Caspar David Friedrich, Alexei Gawrilowitsch Wenezianow, Carl Gustav Carus and Alexander Andrejewitsch Ivanov. There are also selected objects associated with the lives of the artists and other historical personalities, such as Carl Maria von Weber’s baton or Napoleon’s boots, which he presumably wore during the Russian campaign in 1812. The show will run until Feb. 6, 2022.
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