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Italy in 19th century photographs and paintings
The Dietmar Siegert Collection in the Neue Pinakothek
Photography spread quickly throughout Italy in the first decades following its invention in the 1830s. An increasing number of travellers began visiting renowned landscapes and historical sites. Modern tourism evolved from the exclusive Grand Tour, and these travellers became not only patrons of painters but, more importantly, customers for photographers, who soon established studios in large numbers. Three main areas of focus emerged: landscape and architectural photography, genre photography, and the records of works of art in museums. Photography developed swiftly along these lines, exhibiting a remarkable range that included both functional aspects and a wide range of artistic approaches.
The Neue Pinakothek and the Sammlung Schack both feature exceptional collections of paintings that capture the myth of Italy as a romantic motif of longing. Many of these paintings were acquired by King Ludwig I (1786-1868, reigned 1825-1848), who founded the museum in 1853. The poet and art collector Adolf Friedrich von Schack (1815-1894) was a discerning connoisseur of Mediterranean cultures, particularly Italian, a passion reflected in his collection of paintings, which includes numerous Italian subjects. Since 2014, the Neue Pinakothek has also been home to the Dietmar Siegert Collection, comprising around 10,000 photographs taken between 1846 and 1900, predominantly in Italy.
The exhibition offers a glimpse into the thematic richness of this collection and connects the photographs to the painters' perspectives on Italy. The individual sections focus on the artistic genres in which both painters and photographers operated: landscapes as vedute or visualizations of an ideal Arcadia, genre scenes reflecting a new perception of reality, the depiction of historical events in both photography and painting, and, finally, replicas of famous artworks as painted copies or photographic reproductions.
