Wallraf-Richartz-Museum & Fondation Corboud

The Wallraf shows how modern and contemporary European art from the 13th to the early 20th century once was and still is today.

The museum is located in the heart of the cathedral city and invites visitors to encounter masterpieces from the most important eras. The museum has one of the most important collections of medieval painting in the world. In addition to paintings by Dürer, Cranach, and Bruyn, Stefan Lochner's famous “Madonna in the Rose Arbor” is its highlight. Other highlights include Baroque painting with works by Rubens, Rembrandt, Murillo, and Boucher, German Romanticism, and French Realism.

With the paintings from the Fondation Corboud, the Wallraf has the most extensive collection of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist art in Germany. Manet, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Morisot, Signac, and Seurat are represented with outstanding works. Painters such as van Gogh, Cézanne, Gauguin, Ensor, and Munch already herald the advent of modernism here.

In its graphic arts cabinet, the museum also displays masterpieces from its rich collection, which includes drawings by Leonardo da Vinci, Albrecht Dürer, Rubens, Max Liebermann, and Auguste Rodin.

The building, designed by Cologne's star architect Oswald Mathias Ungers (1926–2007), was opened in 2001 and impresses with its clear proportions.

Further information about the museum's namesakes Ferdinand Franz Wallraf (1748–1824), Johann Heinrich Richartz (1795–1861), and Gérard J. Corboud (1925–2017) is available on the Wallraf digital portal.