Выставка картин Дрезденской галереи. Каталог 1955

In 1955, an exhibition of paintings by the Dresden Gallery opened in Moscow.

The Dresden Art Gallery - one of the world's largest collections of paintings - could perish forever in 1945 - 385 years of its existence. During the Anglo-American bombardment of Dresden, the gallery building was destroyed. The Nazis hid works of art in places unsuitable for storage, as a result of which many paintings were seriously damaged. In the last days of the war, the Nazis mined all the storage facilities, and only thanks to the soldiers of the Soviet Army were the art treasures of the Dresden Gallery saved.
Warriors of the 1st Ukrainian Front, having liberated the city, began searching for paintings. Together with restorers from Moscow, they saved the paintings for several months. And then for ten years in Moscow, Leningrad and Kyiv, painstaking work was carried out to restore them.

In 1955, 1,240 works from the Dreseden Art Gallery were donated to the German Democratic Republic and were exhibited again in the restored building the following year.

“For the first time in history, a country that emerged victorious from the war returned to the defeated country the treasures of art that fell into its hands” - this was how the decision of the Soviet government to transfer the masterpieces of the Dresden Gallery to the German people was assessed, including Raphael’s “Sistine Madonna”, “Sleeping Venus" by Giorgione, "Denarius of Caesar" by Titian...