From the museum press release, 4 August 2010
From Bosch to Goya to Magritte: in the spring of 2011 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is showing its impressive collection of European painting in a totally new light. For a period of two years the collection will be enriched with masterpieces on loan from collections in the Netherlands and abroad. The Collection Enriched affords a unique opportunity to view the finest paintings from the Middle Ages to the twentieth century.
Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is the only museum in the Netherlands whose collection offers a comprehensive overview of the wealth of European painting in general, with a rich representation of Dutch and Flemish art. This extraordinary collection, with masterpieces by artists from Hieronymus Bosch, Pieter Bruegel the Elder and Dürer, to Rubens, Rembrandt and Titian, but also Kandinsky and Magritte, will be presented in a new display from 16 April 2011. The exhibition includes dozens of works that have been in storage for several years.
Masterpieces on loan
Specially for this display, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s permanent collection is being augmented by a series of rarely shown masterpieces by Spanish and Italian artists from other museums in the Netherlands. Several Flemish masterpieces are also being loaned by
the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Antwerp. Among the twenty or more paintings that will enrich Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen’s collection for two years are works by Tintoretto and Goya. The museum is Antwerp is even lending a portrait by Hans Memling.
Grand tour
The display constitutes a grand tour through the history of European painting from the early Italian Renaissance to the outbreak of the Second World War. The collection enriched will include approximately 350 works, displayed on the first floor of the classical 1930s Van der Steur building. On the ground floor Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is presenting a new
selection from the collection of applied arts and design.
The guest curator of The collection enriched is Peter Hecht, enabled by Rembrandt Society Fellow and Professor of the History of Art at Utrecht University. The display is designed by the stylist Maarten Spruijt in association with the visual artist Peter Struycken, responsible for the wall colouring and lighting advice.