Historical Introduction T HE Royal Saxon Picture Gallery in Dresden is essentially the creation of two princes distinguished for their love of art and of splendour, who as Electors of Saxony are known as Friedrich August I. and Friedrich August IL, but as Kings of Poland were entitled Augustus II. (the Strong) and Augustus III. It is consequently obvious that the collectors’ taste of the 18 th century, which beyond the artists of that time, only acknowledged the mature masters of the 16 th and 1 7 th centuries, holding in but little esteem the earlier schools, should still show itself in the majority of the pictures in our collection. However the Royal House of Saxony before the beginning of the 18 th century possessed in their »Kunst- kammer« and palaces a nnclens of pictures, among which the older masters were also represented, and the exertions of the 19 th century have succeeded not only in establishing a department in which contemporary artists are represented, but also in filling up the gaps in the earlier schools. The history of the Dresden Gallery can in the light Of the present be divided into three distinct periods, the first of which is, properly speaking, only introductory, and embra ces the 16 th and 17 th centuries; the second the 18 th cen tury, and the third the 19 th century, and the beginning of the 20 th . We may fix the commencement of the first of these periods in the year 1560, when the Elector Augustus in stituted a »Kunstkammer« above his suite of apartments in the palace at Dresden, which contained an extensive collection of all kinds of curiosities, such as at that time was always to be found at every princely court, and this first period of the history of our collection is consequently only a part of the history of the Kunstkammer, which did not cease to exist 1