Although Oskar Reinhart focused more on painters than on periods, he was not interested in acquiring a representative selection of any single artist's oeuvre. Instead, he sought out only the finest works currently available for purchase. His special affinity with painterly art also led him to disregard painting with strong symbolic content. Despite this lack of concern for comprehensiveness his collection contains examples of the most important styles. Visitors thus become acquainted not only with a sequence of outstanding artistic achievements, but also with a concise history of art in Europe from the fourteenth century to the early twentieth.