Its collection consists of works by mainly German, French, Flemish and Dutch masters from the past eight centuries.

The museum was conceived in the early 19th century by Heinrich Hübsch as a “Gesamtkunstwerk” combining architecture, painting and sculpture to house the collection of the Grand Duke of Baden.

Built by the architect Heinrich Hübsch between 1836 and 1846 as the Grand Ducal Picture Gallery and extended in several phases, it is one of the oldest museum buildings in Germany.

It was created especially for the extensive art collection of the Baden royal family, the basis of which is the so-called Mahlerey-Cabinet of Markgravine Karoline Luise (1723-1783).

The museum notably displays paintings by the Master of the Karlsruhe Passion, Matthias Grünewald (most notably the Tauberbischofsheim Altarpiece), Albrecht Dürer, Hans Baldung, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Hans Burgkmair, Rembrandt, Pieter de Hooch, Peter Paul Rubens, David Teniers the Younger, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Claude Lorrain, Nicolas Poussin, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Paul Gauguin, Caspar David Friedrich, Hans Thoma, Lovis Corinth, August Macke, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Franz Marc, Jean-Marc Nattier, Max Pechstein, Max Ernst, Kurt Schwitters, Juan Gris, Yves Tanguy, Robert Delaunay, Otto Dix and Fritz von Uhde.