The beauty of precision

With this special exhibition, the Draiflessen Collection presented up-to-then not yet presented exhibits from a private collection: the Liberna Collection. The extensive holdings of the collection established by Bernard Brenninkmeijer – part of the Draiflessen Collection as a permanent loan – comprise not only precious manuscripts, but also early printed materials from the fifteenth to the seventeenth century. Highlights of this first-class collection are books of hours, rare editions of incunabula, lavish volumes, graphic works by Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn as well as drawings by Guercino or Antoon van Dyck. The selection of round one hundred works from the Liberna Collection entered into a fascinating dialogue with works on loan from Berlin, Kassel, Cologne, Munich and Vienna, among other places. While the contents naturally play a decisive role, the special appeal of old books lies in the technical and artistic accomplishments, which required a maximum degree of precision. The graphic works shown also owe their impressive effect as images to masterful control of these precision techniques. Besides the content, the exhibition also focussed on the particular aesthetics of the exhibits.