Masterpieces from the Berlin Museums

During the Second World War the paintings of the Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum and the other Berlin state collections were evacuated to salt mines in central Germany, where they were discovered by American forces in April 1945 and transferred to the Wiesbaden Central Collecting Point. After an American tour of fourteen cities (1948-1949) that drew around seven million visitors, all 202 works returned to Germany. Once back, the West Berlin museums organised a sequence of European loan showings to reintroduce the collections to Continental audiences. Brussels was the second stop on that circuit: the same group of pictures had appeared at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam under the title “120 Beroemde schilderijen uit het Kaiser-Friedrich-Museum te Berlijn“ from June to September 1950, and would travel on to the Petit Palais in Paris from February to May 1951 as “Chefs-d’oeuvre des musées de Berlin.”

Both Berlin Vermeers were included. The The Glass of Wine appeared as catalogue no. 111 and Woman with a Pearl Necklace as catalogue no. 112 (illustrated as plate 107). Both belong to the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin (inv. 912C and 912B respectively), and their presence together in Brussels marked one of the first opportunities for Belgian audiences to see the two paintings since before the war.