Museumsportal Berlin

The Collection of Plaster Casts of Ancient Sculpture continues the tradition of the famous Berlin Cast Collection founded in 1695, which was widely destroyed in World War II. The reconstruction was made possible by the cooperation of both the Department for Classical Archaeology at the Free University and the Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz (National Museum of Prussian Cultural Heritage). In 1988, the collection could get re-opened.
Currently, the collection has about 2000 plaster casts of Greek and Roman sculptures. It serves primarily for training and research, but is also interesting for a broader public. The presented casts give a complete overview on the history and the various forms of Greek and Roman sculptures - from the Cycladic culture of the third millenium BC, Minoan and Mycenaean Art, the geometric and archaic sculpture, the sculpture of the classic period and of the Hellenistic period to the sculpture of the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire up to around 500 AC. Hereby, looking at the ancient world should give a better understanding of its characteristics and limitedness by selected samples of other cultures of the Mediterranean, supported also by special exhibitions on modern art, but also by music and theatre performances, readings, and lectures.