The collection of drawings by German Old Masters in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen is known by connoisseurs and scholars as a relatively small but rare and beautiful one. But until this moment it has not as a whole been subject to critical assessment and made public in its entire range.
Spanning the time from the soft and elegant Late Gothic style of the 1420s to the powerful and expressive followers of Albrecht Dürer and Albrecht Altdorfer in the 1530s, a wide range of fine and rare master drawings are preserved in the collection. Martin Schongauer, Hans Holbein the Elder, Hans Baldung Grien as well as Hans Schäufelein are among the artists whose work came to stand as exemplary of the high tide of German art.