Cataloguing and scholarly treatment of an institution’s own collections are key responsibilities of museums worldwide and also of central importance to the Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg (SPSG). The SPSG thus established its own series of scholarly collection catalogues in 2000, initially publishing them with the Akademie Verlag in Berlin, which merged with the De Gruyter Verlag in 2014. The series aims to comprehensively research the art collections of the Prussian royal palaces.
Quite a number of volumes have already been published: On embroidery; chandeliers; the drawings of the garden director Georg Potente; the losses of the Prussian palaces in World War II; furniture influenced by Historicism and the late Biedermeier periods; antiquities acquired from the 17th to the 19th centuries by electors and kings; French paintings; coaches, sleighs and sedan chairs of the Prussian royal house; as well as the silks in the Prussian palaces. Further studies are planned in close succession; some are already in preparation.
The Stiftung Preußische Schlösser und Gärten Berlin-Brandenburg oversees a rich, quite diverse artistic heritage, primarily of very high quality. The collection catalogues are intended to make this heritage accessible to scholars and an interested public. A special focus of all of the catalogues is the history of the collections and royal commissions. Each contains an appendix listing the collections’ important losses, which were largely suffered during and immediately after World War II, so that lost and destroyed works also remain present in the research.
Nearly all of the catalogues are the products of scholarly collaboration. Many of the projects are supported by foundations and cooperation partners.
