Liberna Collection
Since September 2012, the Liberna Collection, which includes high-level and extensive holdings of manuscripts, miniatures, incunabula, books after 1500, prints, drawings, and paintings – with a focus on the fifteenth to the seventeenth century – have been on permanent loan to Draiflessen Collection.
The collection comprises round four thousand objects, including famous incunabula – for example, Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), the Schedelsche Weltchronik (Schedel’s World Chronicle), the Koberger Bible, or Albrecht Dürer’s Apokalypse (The Apocalypse) – as well as highlights of the art of printing of later years – for instance, the Elsevier Bible, or a complete Blaue Atlas. The graphic art collection includes numerous German and Dutch masters; the main focus of the collection is on Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn.
Along with the Liberna Collection, the Draiflessen-owned collection of books and graphic art builds one of the most important Dutch libraries specialized in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The entire Liberna Collection is housed in a study room dedicated specifically to it, which is accessible to interested scholars with advance notice. Regular special exhibitions that shed light on various fascinating facets of the holdings are also presented on a regular basis. Some parts of the collection are already indexed online in international databases, such as the entire incunabula holdings in the ISTC of the British Library and our manuscripts and drawings in the database of the RKD (currently being edited).
Click here to start the 3D tour of the digital Liberna Collection.
The collection comprises round four thousand objects, including famous incunabula – for example, Sebastian Brant’s Narrenschiff (Ship of Fools), the Schedelsche Weltchronik (Schedel’s World Chronicle), the Koberger Bible, or Albrecht Dürer’s Apokalypse (The Apocalypse) – as well as highlights of the art of printing of later years – for instance, the Elsevier Bible, or a complete Blaue Atlas. The graphic art collection includes numerous German and Dutch masters; the main focus of the collection is on Albrecht Dürer and Rembrandt van Rijn.
Along with the Liberna Collection, the Draiflessen-owned collection of books and graphic art builds one of the most important Dutch libraries specialized in the 17th and 18th centuries.
The entire Liberna Collection is housed in a study room dedicated specifically to it, which is accessible to interested scholars with advance notice. Regular special exhibitions that shed light on various fascinating facets of the holdings are also presented on a regular basis. Some parts of the collection are already indexed online in international databases, such as the entire incunabula holdings in the ISTC of the British Library and our manuscripts and drawings in the database of the RKD (currently being edited).
Click here to start the 3D tour of the digital Liberna Collection.
Ausstellungsansicht STORYTELLING
| © Draiflessen Collection, Foto: Henning Rogge
The incunabula of the Liberna Collection are the focus of an episode of the YouTube series “Incunabula: de wieg van de boekdrukkunst”, an initiative of the Vereniging van Antwerpse Bibliofielen and the Nederlands Genootschap van Bibliofielen. In this vlog, our colleagues Iris Ellers and Guido Scholten present some of the most extraordinary incunabula printed in the Netherlands.