Germany Guide
Munich
Glypothek
Address: Königsplatz
Opening time: Tues, Wed & Fri– Sun 10am–5pm, Thurs 10am–8pm
Price: €3.50, or €5.50 combined ticket with Antikensammlung; English guide €1
Wartime destruction did a great aesthetic favour to the Glypothek, for it allowed the museum's curators to strip away Leo von Klenze's fussy and much-criticized interiors and instead present the museum's beautiful collection of antique statuary in surroundings of exquisite austerity. The collection starts as it means to go on with a roomful of early depictions of Greek youths, including a large, rust-coloured grave statue of a youth from Attica, dated around 540 or 530 BC. The most famous single sculpture in the museum is the Barberini Faun, a remarkable depiction of a sleeping satyr, languid yet athletic, which was probably originally erected in the open space of a Greek sanctuary dedicated to Dionysos. Dated around 200 BC, the sculpture's route to Munich was via the Palazzo Barberini in Rome, from which it acquired its popular name. The largest single collection of sculptures in the museum is the superb group of pediment sculptures from the Sanctuary of Aphaia on the island of Aegina, which date from around 500 BC. The Glypothek also has a fascinating selection of Roman sculptures from the period of the late Republic, when – in contrast to the aesthetic ideal always depicted in Greek sculptures – there was an attempt to produce genuine likenesses.