That the 19th-century paintings from the Berlin Nationalgalerie should be exhibited at the National Gallery, London (which is, of course, as a collection, international) is a little confusing. They would be more at home alongside the 19th-century pictures in (or once in) the British national collection at the Tate. The Berlin Nationalgalerie, which opened in 1876, had, like the Tate (but much earlier), a remit to collect and display new native work. Like the Tate, it became a gallery of modern, not just native modern, art. Unlike the Tate, as Peter-Klaus Schuster's essay in the catalogue makes clear, the Nationalgalerie was carried forward, buffeted, and thrown back, by political forces. Its greatest directors were bold in their aims and acquisitions, and suffered for it. In 1896 Hugo von Tschudi, newly appointed, went to Paris and bought work by Manet, Monet, Degas, Rodin and Cézanne: not with state money but donations from Berliners, many of them Jewish collectors with tastes similar to his own. An impressive selection of those pictures is part of this exhibition.

LRB 22 March 2001 | PDF Download