The Munich Art Gallery at the Royal Gardens Arcade
The art gallery in Munich during Caroline’s time there was located above the arcades that ran along the northern perimeter of the Royal Gardens; by 1837 that street would appropriately be named Galleriestrasse, here shown with the western arcades as well (H. Widmayr, Plan der Könige Haupt-und Residenz-Stadt München im Jahre 1837 [München 1837]; Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plan):
Here specifically indicated on an 1809 map as K[önigliche] Gemaelde Gallerie (Max-Vorstadt, Stadtviertel [1809]; Bayerisches Landesvermessungsamt München Nr. 558/03; Bayerische Landesbibliothek):
In 1783 Lorenz von Westenriede, Beschreibung der Haupt- und Residenzstadt München (im gegenwärtigen Zustande) (Munich 1783), 75–76, remarks that
what I said above concerning the royal library, namely, that at the time I am writing it is still being constructed and arranged, applies equally to the art gallery. The paintings have hitherto been housed in the prince-electoral palaces, namely the in Residence in Munich itself, and then in Nymphenburg and especially in Schleissheim. The best from these collections have now been selected and will soon be transferred to a building that the reigning prince elector Karl Theodor had built in 1779 . . . their own temple.
By the time Caroline and Schelling lived in Munich, of course, Munich had acquired several other collections (see the supplementary appendix on the acquisition of the Düsseldorf gallery). Franz von Reber, Katalog der Gemälde-Sammlung der kgl. älteren Pinakothek in München (Munich 1908), xxii, recounts the next developments (trans. Joseph Thacher Clarke, Catalogue of the Paintings in the Old Pinakothek Munich with a Historical Introduction by Dr. Franz V. Reber [Munich 1885], xxii):
Even before the reception of the Düsseldorf Gallery, with its large requirements, it had been unquestionably evident, — since the increase from Mannheim, Zweibrücken and the Bavarian Palaces, and from the secularization, — that the space provided by the building in the Hof-Garten, though supplemented by the use of Schleissheim, Nymphenburg, and the disposable rooms in the Palace itself, was not sufficient for the accommodation of the pictures. Director von Mannlich consequently received instructions to prepare a plan for a new edifice, which design is still to be seen among the official records. The unsettled state of politics at that time fortunately prevented the fulfillment of this project.
Some steps, however, were taken in the matter after the Peace of Paris [1815, after Napoleon’s final defeat], first by proposing to enlarge the structure of Charles Theodore’s gallery, and later to use the place then available in the Bazaar. In 1822 the services of Klenze were engaged, and the so-called Zweibrücken Garden on the Brienner Strasse [southwest of the Royal Gardens] was bought for a location. But the design submitted in May 1823 to the committee of the Academy of Art was refused, because of objections to the site proposed.
A second plan, prepared in October of the same year, for the open lot of ground west of the Turken-Kaserne, obtained the acceptance of the Academy and the approval of the King. As Maximilian died in 1825 he did not see the laying of the corner stone, so that the building was carried on during the first decade of the reign of King Ludwig I.
(In order: [1] H. Widmayr, Plan der Könige Haupt-und Residenz-Stadt München im Jahre 1837 [München 1837]; Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Cartes et plans; [2] Friedrich Wilhelm Bruckbräu, Neuestes Taschenbuch der Haupt- und Residenzstadt München und den Umgebungen für Einheimische und Fremde [Munich 1828], unnumbered plate following the table of contents):
That edifice, the Pinakothek, opened on 16 Oktober 1836; it would not, however, become known as the Old Pinakothek until the New Pinakothek was finished across from it in 1853 (Theodor Trautwein, Führer durch München und seine Umgebung mit einem neuen Plan von München und Umgebung, Tableau der inneren Eintheilung des k. Hof- und National-Theaters und Grundriss der Residenz, der beiden Pinakotheken und der Glyptothek [Munich 1877], 277):
Caroline, however, would have visited the original, arcade gallery on the northern edge of the Royal Gardens, here in relation to Caroline and Schelling’s apartment at Karlsthor 7 on a map from 1803 (Johann Michael Schramm, Grundriss der Churbaierischen Haupt- und Residenzstadt München [München 1803]):
Here the exterior arcades in an illustration from 1835, i.e., just as the Pinakothek was about to open (Skizzen aus dem Münchner-Leben, 2: Der Hofgarten [Hamburg 1835], frontispiece):
