The museum's main attraction is its collection of Italian paintings from the late Gothic and early Renaissance age (13th–15th centuries), which are among the largest outside Italy.

The artworks include Filippo Lippi's St. Jerome in Penance, Sandro Botticelli's Portrait of Caterina Sforza and a predella panel by Fra Angelico.

Semper adopted the basic architectural concept from the Alte Pinakothek but introduced a decisive internal symmetry with a central octagonal rotunda.

When constructing the Lindenau Museum, Julius Robert Enger, a senior building inspector from Altenburg and a student of Semper, clearly referred to his teacher's Dresden model.

Enger succeeded in creating a museum building that is significantly simplified in both material and architectural terms and yet impresses with its palatial overall effect and compositional balance.