Bavarian State Gallery

About

The Bavarian National Museum was founded in 1855 by King Maximilian II of Bavaria. Its present building on Prinzregentenstraße was designed by architect Gabriel von Seidl, who won an 1893 design competition, and opened on September 29, 1900. The museum's exhibition space totals roughly 13,000 square metres. Its collection features an extensive body of medieval and Renaissance sculpture by South German sculptors such as Tilman Riemenschneider, Hans Multscher, and Hans Leinberger. The museum also holds around 250 ivory carvings from the 16th to 18th centuries, displayed in its dedicated Ivory Room (Elfenbeinsaal). Its world-renowned collection of Christmas nativity scenes (Krippen) was built on the basis of a 1906 donation by the Munich businessman Max Schmederer.