Chambre Privée. Flemish Masterpieces from a Collector’s Living Room is the title of a small exhibition in the fireplace room of the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, which shows loans from a private collector, who owns and collects almost exclusively Flemish and Dutch paintings. The impetus came from the still life exhibition in Münster in 1979, which left such a lasting impression on the collector that he himself began to acquire Flemish and Dutch still life paintings in particular, but later also landscapes, thus steadily building up his collection. He placed particular emphasis on the high quality of the pictures and continues to work closely with art historians and dealers. He now owns masterpieces of high quality, from Jan Brueghel the Elder, Ambrosius Bosschaert, Adriaen van de Venne, Willem Claesz. Heda to Frans Snyders, Johannes Fyt, Willem Kalf, Adriaen Brouwer or Paul Bril.

The concept of the exhibition is to give the visitor a “view through the keyhole” into the private sphere of a collector, namely into his living room. This will play a major role in the design of the exhibition: On a photo canvas, the collector’s living room is  “transported” into the fireplace room and supplemented with one or two pieces of furniture.  The private rooms are thus made visible to the visitor for a period of three months, giving them an insight into how a collector lives with his art at home.  Since the collector, who wishes to remain anonymous, does not want to part with all his treasures or sit in front of empty walls, the exhibition will be shown in two parts: first the Flemish (2018) and a year later the Dutch (2019) will come to Aachen. The exhibition will be accompanied by an exhibition catalogue. For more information you can visit the museum’s website.