Since the emergence of art history as an academic discipline, visual representations of artworks have served as indispensable tools for teaching and research. At the chair of art history at the former Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Berlin, reproductions, engravings, and photographs were systematically employed from the second half of the 19th century onward.

By around 1900, the institution’s visual archive comprised approximately 15,000 glass slides, 250 portfolios of engravings and photographs, and 1,200 volumes. The collection was continuously expanded over time. However, significant portions – particularly the engravings and photographic materials – were lost during the Second World War.

Today, the surviving holdings include the photographic archive, the glass slide collection, which remained in use until the 1960s, and a substantial collection of colour 35mm slides. These materials are preserved and made accessible for scholarly research by the Media Library of the Department of Art and Visual History. While the analogue collections remain available for in-person consultation, a substantial portion of the archive is now accessible digitally through Humboldt University’s Media Repository.