Picture library - Staatliches Institut für Musikforschung - Preußischer Kulturbesitz

The picture library of the Musikinstrumenten-Museum holds extensive documentation material on the museum's own instrument collection.

These include colour slides (Ektachrome), B/W negatives or B/W enlargements and workshop photographs as well as restoration reports, surveys and technical drawings. The commercial usage of the photographs is the responsibility of bpk Bildagentur.

In addition, numerous paintings, copper and steel engravings, lithographs and original drawings document historical instrument making and historical performance practices. This collection is supplemented by photographs of instruments made by others as well as reproductions of important personalities in music history.

Further sources of information in the picture archive:

• Instrument and instrument maker card index by Friedrich Ernst (loose-leaf collection).
• Instrument maker's card index with literature references (evaluation of the journals "Zeitschrift für Instrumentenbau" and "Das Musikinstrument")
• Glass plate collection of the Potsdam organ building company Schuke
• Bequest of the Berlin violin maker Alfred Leicht
• Selected patent specifications on musical instrument making