Cabinet des estampes et des dessins

The Cabinet des estampes et des dessins is the municipal print room and drawing collection of Strasbourg, France, housed in the Bas-Rhin department of Alsace. Founded in 1890, it preserves and displays the city's holdings of graphic art from the 14th to the mid-19th century, encompassing drawings, woodcuts, engravings, etchings, and lithographs. With an estimated 200,291 works as of December 2015, it ranks among the most significant collections of its kind in France, distinguished by exceptional depth in German, Italian, and Northern printmaking, as well as substantial holdings documenting the visual culture of Strasbourg and the Alsace region.

The collection was established in 1890 by Wilhelm von Bode during his comprehensive rebuilding and reorganization of Strasbourg's art collections, following the destruction of the city's previous museums in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The French-language Wikipedia notes that the graphic arts holdings had actually begun to be assembled from 1877, initially as part of the collections of the musée des Beaux-Arts. The Cabinet received its own dedicated quarters in 1898 within the Palais Rohan. In 1984 it moved to premises adjacent to the Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame. For forty years it occupied the third floor of the former Imperial School of Military Health Service at 5 place du Château, near the cathedral. In 2025 the collection relocated to the Pôle d'étude et de conservation des Musées de Strasbourg in the Port du Rhin district. A major enrichment came in 2019 with a donation of 33 drawings and 5 engravings by masters including Giovanni Domenico Tiepolo, Jean-Honoré Fragonard, Jacques Callot, and Rembrandt.

The Cabinet's collections span five centuries of European graphic art, from approximately 1400 to 1870. Municipal graphic art from 1870 onward is now displayed in the Musée d'art moderne et contemporain and the Tomi Ungerer Museum. The holdings are organized around several major strengths: German printmaking centered on Albrecht Dürer and Hans Baldung Grien; Italian Renaissance engraving including works by Andrea Mantegna, Antonio Pollaiuolo, and Marcantonio Raimondi; Northern European schools represented by Hendrik Goltzius, Rembrandt, Jacques Callot, and Wenzel Hollar; and French lithography with Honoré Daumier, Grandville, and Eugène Delacroix. The collection also maintains extensive documentary holdings on the iconography of Alsace, including views of Strasbourg and its cathedral, regional landscapes, Alsatian portraits, and urban plans tracing the city's development from the early 16th to the late 19th century.

Among the Cabinet's signature works are Andrea Mantegna's Combat of the Sea Gods, Antonio Pollaiuolo's Battle of the Naked Men, and Marcantonio Raimondi's enigmatic On the Way to the Sabbath. The German Renaissance is represented by engravings and woodcuts by Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung Grien, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Albrecht Altdorfer, and Sebald Beham, as well as the important group of drawings by the Master of the Drapery Studies. The Northern schools include significant etchings by Rembrandt, Hendrik Goltzius, Jacob Matham, and Stefano della Bella. Italian drawings feature sheets attributed to Giovanni Antonio Boltraffio after Leonardo da Vinci's Last Supper. The 18th-century French holdings include an important group of drawings by Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourg and two pendants by Charles-Joseph Natoire. The 2019 Poitrey-Ballabio donation added Italian, Northern, and French works primarily of the 17th century. The collection also preserves significant drawings of goldsmith's work from the 18th and 19th centuries.

The Cabinet's physical location has shifted several times over its history. After receiving dedicated space in the Palais Rohan in 1898, it moved in 1984 to quarters near the Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame. For four decades it occupied the third floor of the former Imperial School of Military Health Service at 5 place du Château, in immediate proximity to Strasbourg Cathedral. In 2025 the collection was transferred to the Pôle d'étude et de conservation des Musées de Strasbourg, located in the Port du Rhin district. The French Wikipedia indicates that the Cabinet may eventually benefit from dedicated spaces in the Palais Rohan.

The Cabinet des estampes et des dessins is part of the Musées de la Ville de Strasbourg network. Its official website is maintained at musees.strasbourg.eu. Selected works from the collection are accessible through the Base Joconde database of the French Ministry of Culture. As of 2025, the collection is housed in the Pôle d'étude et de conservation des Musées de Strasbourg in the Port du Rhin quarter, having moved from its previous location at 5 place du Château. The institution serves both as a public museum and as a research center for the study of graphic arts, with particular emphasis on the artistic heritage of Strasbourg and the broader Alsace region.