Städel Museum

The Städel, officially the Städelsches Kunstinstitut und Städtische Galerie, is an art museum in Frankfurt, with one of the most important collections in Germany. The museum is located at the Museumsufer on the Sachsenhausen bank of the River Main. The Städel Museum owns 3,100 paintings, 660 sculptures, more than 4,600 photographs and more than 100,000 drawings and prints. It has around 7,000 m2 (75,000 ft2) of display and a library of 115,000 books. In 2012, the Städel was honoured as Museum of the Year by the German art critics association AICA. In the same year the museum recorded the highest attendance figures in its history, of 447,395 visitors. History 19th century The Städel was founded in 1817, and is one of the oldest museums in Frankfurt. The founding followed a bequest by the Frankfurt banker and art patron Johann Friedrich Städel (1728–1816), who left his house, art collection and fortune with the request in his will that the institute be set up. In the early years, Städel's former living quarters at Frankfurt's Roßmarkt were used to present his collection. The collection received. 19th-century building In 1878, a new museum building, in the Neo-Renaissance style, was erected by Oskar Sommer on Schaumainkai, a street along the south side of the river Main. Floor plan, 1894