Seven Hundred Years of European Art
The Städel Museum in Frankfurt houses half of all famous German paintings: Goethe in the Roman Campagna. (The other one hangs in Hamburg.) It was painted by Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, who happened to be in the right place at the right time to portray the right person to bring him fame, and if it were not for Goethe, it would likely have been just another supersized portrait. Named after its founder Johann Friedrich Städel, a bachelor merchant & banker who, ‘in God’s name’, left his substantial art collection to his fellow citizens of Frankfurt after his death in 1816, the Städel Museum today provides a rich survey of 700 years of European art, spanning the Middle Ages to the present. It holds one of the most important collections in Germany, comprising numerous excellent paintings, sculptures, drawings, prints & photographs.
There is no escape; when you enter the museum, you have to see Tischbein’s Goethe, which is exciting anyway, and while you’re at it, also have a look at the portrait that Andy Warhol made of him. Other collection highlights include Jan van Eyck’s Lucca Madonna