Berlin Museum Covers Rembrandt as Heavy Rains Hit Germany

Heavy rain in Berlin could have put some Rembrandt art work in a drippy scenario. Brooklyn School music professor David Grubbs, who visited Berlin’s Gemäldegalerie at present, June 23, captured a photograph of the artist’s canvas “The Mennonite preacher Cornelis Claesz Anslo and his spouse Aeltje Gerritsdr Schouten” (1641) wrapped in a skinny plastic sheet. Alongside the work’s sides, items of duct tape seem to seal the quilt to the partitions and the portray’s body. On the ground under, a white bucket sits on prime of what seems to be a black tarp.

Grubbs instructed Hyperallergic that he visited the museum round 4pm and seen “a leaky ceiling in the principle Rembrandt room” of the Gemäldegalerie. In a tweet, he described “a gradual patter of drops” descending from the ceiling into the bucket — merely inches away from the 382-year-old portray.

The extreme rain comes after a historic moist interval for Germany. On the finish of Could, the German Climate Service (DWD) reported that the nation skilled the “wettest spring” in at the very least a decade, reporting larger ranges of rain in each March and April. Though Could had milder rainfall than the earlier two months, the nation’s north and east areas have been experiencing constant extreme climate fluctuations this month together with thunderstorms and hail.

Right now, the heavy precipitation additionally inconvenienced tennis followers, suspending your complete Friday schedule for the Berlin Open’s quarterfinals to Saturday, based on the Associated Press. The newswire service additionally reported flooded roads and railway closures because of the extreme rain.

In recent times, climate change has resulted in excessive climate patterns throughout Europe and the globe, forcing artwork establishments to adjust their visiting hours and at occasions close entirely for security causes.

The Gemäldegalerie boasts a formidable assortment of 20 work by the Dutch Golden Age painter, in addition to a whole lot of different works spanning the thirteenth by the seventeenth centuries. It’s unclear whether or not any of those works have been impacted by the alleged ceiling leak. Hyperallergic has reached out to the museum for extra data.

Within the section of the museum the place the portray is situated, a number of of the galleries have been temporarily closed for renovations whereas the establishment is putting in a brand new energy-efficient lighting system. Because the building mission started in October 2021, areas of the museum have closed and reopened in phases. Within the meantime, highlighted artworks have been relocated to completely different galleries for viewing. The final part of the renovation is ready to be full by this September.