The largest graphic collection in Germany is one of the four most important in the world. It comprises over 500,000 printed works and about 110,000 drawings, watercolors, pastels and oil sketches.

The Kupferstichkabinett (Museum of Prints and Drawings) holds European and, more recently, American drawings and prints from the Middle Ages to the present. In addition, there are illuminated manuscripts, i.e. manuscripts decorated with paintings from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, books with original prints, portfolio works, sketchbooks, topographical views and printing plates.

The collection thus covers over 1000 years of art, culture and media history. These treasures also form a unique storehouse of artistic ideas, images and forms of expression. Especially the drawings of early Italian, Old German and Dutch masters as well as of the 19th century are of high quality.

Accordingly, there are rich holdings of masterpieces by Botticelli, Dürer, Albrecht Altdorfer, Matthias Grünewald, Bruegel the Elder, Rembrandt, Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Friedrich or Menzel. Within the collection, the work complexes of these artists as well as Classical Modernism, Pop Art, Conceptual Art, and Minimal Art have grown to form focal points.