The story
In 1815 a Frankfurt banker and spice merchant named Johann Friedrich Stadel, childless and near the end of his life, left his entire fortune, his house and his art collection to set up a foundation for the public. He died the next year. The museum that carries his name has belonged to the citizens of Frankfurt ever since, run by a foundation rather than a prince or a state.
Two centuries of buying have made it one of Germany's finest collections, running from medieval panels to the present. The best-known picture is Johann Tischbein's 'Goethe in the Roman Campagna' of 1787, the great writer reclining among ancient ruins in a wide-brimmed hat, on the Italian journey that changed him.
Around it hang Jan van Eyck and Botticelli, Vermeer's quiet 'The Geographer' bent over his charts, and later Degas and a self-portrait by van Gogh. In 2012 the museum dug a new hall for contemporary art beneath its garden, lit from above through round skylights that stud the lawn like portholes, so the newest work sits literally under the older galleries.
