Our European summer holiday began in Munich – surprisingly cold and drizzly – perfect weather for long sessions in the Alte Pinakothek. This is one of the more forbidding of the great galleries, with its battered façade showing all the evidence of extensive bombing during World War II and a utilitarian rebuilding by Hans Döllgast in the 1950s.

Once past the desolate foyer, the visitor is confronted with a succession of wonders, despite the fact that presently more than half of the museum is closed for renovations. Needed ones too, perhaps – not just the décor. It is hard to think of a major gallery with laxer museological standards: nugatory information on plastic captions stuck on the frames, with no hint of when the works were created or acquired.