Adolph Menzel (1815–1905) was the eye of the nineteenth century. In autumn of 2019, the Berlin Kupferstichkabinett – which possesses the largest collection of works on paper by this German artist, comprising more than 6,000 works – is rediscovering Menzel as a painter of works on paper with a major solo exhibition. The show will feature around 100 works in watercolour, pastels and gouache from the museum’s own holdings, along with a number of key loans. Together, they offer the first comprehensive survey of Menzel’s painterly works on paper.

Menzel is known as a painter of large works on canvas, and as the creator of countless studies in pencil. But it was first as a painter of works on paper that he began to employ the full palette of his artistic gifts of expression, creating colourful works ranging from experimental portrait studies through to elaborately composed paintings.

The majority of the works shown in the exhibition are standalone works, however there are also a number of preparatory studies for famous paintings – including the portrait studies carried out in preparation for the coronation picture commissioned by King Wilhelm I, which Menzel painted between 1861 and 1865, and which represents the largest and of Menzel’s paintings, depicting countless figures.