DRESDEN.- In 1603, a now iconic painting became a part of the Kunstkammer Dresden. It shows the foot artist Thomas Schweicker (1540-1602) from Schwäbisch Hall – a man born without arms who achieved national fame as a calligrapher.

The work was exhibited in the second room of the Kunstkammer, alongside the portraits of the electoral family and their aristocratic friends. After the collection was dissolved in 1832, the ownership was transferred to the Gemäldegalerie and then eventually sold.

As part of the special exhibition ‘Admired, collected, and put on display. Disability in baroque and contemporary art’ (31 October 2024 to 3 March 2025), the painting is now returning to Dresden, on loan from the collector Thomas Olbricht. It is a key object of an exhibition in the Sponsel Room of the Neues Grünes Gewölbe which explores the topic of disability in royal art, including works by contemporary artists.

In addition to portraits and examples of Thomas Schweicker’s calligraphy, the exhibition also presents another 17th-century foot artist, one whose portrait and artworks have never been shown before. Other items include a suit of armour that belonged to the 'court dwarf' Rupert von der Veste Coburg, as well as various depictions of a court servant of small stature called Hante, who probably came to Dresden from India.

The presence and public display of disabled people in European royal and princely houses illustrates the ambivalence between privileged position, prestige and discrimination. People of small stature, for example, held official positions as so-called 'court dwarfs'. This dichotomy was also expressed in the extremely popular 'dwarf images' of the period, which were particularly common in prints and collectors art. Furthermore, the exhibition also reflects on the theme of acquired disability (for example as a result of war), the invention of prosthetic aids and how these were seen through the ages.

In addition to the historical dimension, the exhibition also touches on the present. The four artists Eric Beier, Eva Jünger, Steven Solbrig and Dirk Sorge have created a variety of contributions that enrich the presentation on a curatorial and artistic level and critically question established norms. The works will be on display in the special exhibition and as interventions in the permanent exhibition of the Neues Grünes Gewölbe.

A visual guidance system, conceived and designed by Eric Beier, will lead visitors from the Kleine Schlosshof to the Sponsel Room and to the contemporary artworks. On the opening night, Steven Solbrig will present a lecture-performance entitled 'Soon we will be legends? Of beggars, miracles and crips in the Baroque and the present', focusing on the ambivalences and continuities in how we relate to the human body.

The exhibition features around fifty objects, including works from the Staatlichen Kunstsammlungen Dresden and invaluable loans from the Olbricht Collection, the Germanisches Nationalmuseum in Nuremberg, the National Museum in Wroclaw, the Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna, the Veste Coburg Art Collections and the Schatzkammer Esterházy in Eisenstadt.

Inclusion is an important concern for the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, both in general and specifically with regard to this exhibition. In order to make the exhibition as accessible as possible to all visitors, the accompanying programme includes guided tours for the visually impaired and blind, for the deaf and for people with dementia, as well as an artist’s talk and a symposium organised in cooperation with the Saxon Servicestelle Inklusion im Kulturbereich (Service Centre for Inclusion in the Cultural Sector, SIK). All texts and the accompanying booklet, which is published free of charge, are available in plain language in German and English.

On 4 December 2024, the SKD are organising the symposium ‘The Unknowns. Symposium on the representation of disability in art’ in cooperation with the SIK at the Albertinum. Many art disciplines look back on a centuries-old tradition in which disability plays no role of its own. A curatorial view that marginalises, exoticises or stigmatises disability often prevails. The symposium offers a framework for scrutinising practices of disability representation and discovering them as an enrichment of curatorial practice and established art discourse.