Looking up to admire the re-creation of a Louis De Silvestre painting that hung in a chamber of the Dresden Residential Palace in 1719 are, from left, Dirk Syndram, director of the State Arts Collections Dresden’s Green Vault; Jack Kyle, executive director of the Mississippi Commission of International Cultural Exchange; and Dr. Harald Marx, director of The Old Masters Picture Gallery in Dresden. The three were touring with media invited to preview the “The Glory of Baroque Dresden” exhibit, which opens in Jackson Monday.(Melanie Duncan Thortis)

This is one in an occasional series of stories about “The Glory of Baroque Dresden.” Post features editor Sonya Kimbrell visited Germany to view the artworks being exhibited in Mississippi.

[2/27/04]JACKSON When the doors open Monday for the “The Glory of Baroque Dresden” exhibition, it will be the first time in 25 years that art from the German city has been seen in the United States.

Mississippi Commission for Cultural Exchange Executive Director Jack Kyle started the process in 2001.

“When we were considering it, what everybody asked us was Why Jackson?'” said Martin Roth, director of the State Art Collections Dresden.

Both addressed media representatives during a preview of the exhibition Thursday and answered his question by saying Dresden art officials felt an obligation to share culture in areas outside New York or Los Angeles.

“Do not ask what is the best?’ Everything is the most. Everything is the best,” Roth said.

The exhibition is exclusive to Jackson but German officials say they hope it will show that Dresden is a “hidden treasure” and draw visitors to Europe.

More than 400 objects of art, jewelry, armor, medals, porcelain, drawings, paintings, coins and decorative objects will be on display, but these objects represent less than 4 percent of art housed in Dresden.

The State Art Collections includes 11 museums and an art library. “The Glory of Baroque Dresden” has 15 galleries filled with the princely collection that reflects baroque art during the time of August the Strong and his son August III, electors of Saxony and kings of Poland.

Harald Marx, director of the Old Masters Gallery, said no blank walls were left in the Semper Gallery even though 23 masterpieces including works by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Flinck, Rubens, Titian, Veronese and Caracci will be in Jackson for the next six months.

Dresden’s collection is so vast that many pieces are rarely displayed.

Many of the structures that house the art were damaged or destroyed in the 1945 bombing of Dresden, but most of the art was hidden in nearby mountains.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is scheduled to be in Jackson today to help inaugurate the exhibition.

Monday’s opening represents the culmination of planning that’s lasted more than two years.

Sabine Siebel, project manager, has been in Jackson for five weeks while the exhibit was intalled. She said that transportation and installation has gone smoothly.

“There are only a few things left to do,” she said.

Kyle would not predict attendance figures but said the exhibit needs 320,000 visitors to break even. Previous exhibits had 271,500 to 554,000 visitors.

“We’re hoping for more than that, though,” he said.

“This may be the finest exhibit ever seen in the South.”