During the renovation of the Neue Pinakothek, a selection of 19th century masterpieces will be on display at the Alte Pinakothek. The permanent exhibition “From Turner to van Gogh” will be accompanied in 2026 by temporary presentations that focus on special themes and groups of works.

The Neue Pinakothek has an extensive collection of 19th-century photographs from Italy. Most of the motifs are landscapes and architectural monuments from Venice to Naples. However, people also played an important role from very early on – either as individuals or as representatives of a particular social class.

From the mid-19th century onwards, portrait photography contributed significantly to the establishment of the new medium. Photographic portraits were mostly produced in carte-de-visite format, making them affordable for a broad range of buyers. Small albums were used to collect not only photographs of one's own family and friends, but also of famous personalities of the time.

Portraits of the last Bourbons on the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in Naples stand alongside members of the aristocratic families loyal to the Pope in Rome. Other photographs show the protagonists of the Risorgimento, from Mazzini to Garibaldi. The intimate format of the carte-de-visite thus creates a panorama of Italian society and its contrasts in the years around 1860.

Genre photographs provide insight into social realities, even if they were mostly staged and taken in the photographer's studio. They show members of different social groups as types. Colourised photographs present models in the traditional costumes of different regions and could be used by painters as models for genre paintings.

With around fifty photographs, the collection presentation offers an insight into this theme, which is closely intertwined with paintingys of the period. The photographs come from the Dietmar Siegert Collection, which the Pinakotheks-Verein acquired for the Neue Pinakothek in 2014 together with the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung and the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe.