Information from the museum, 24 September 2015
The Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent owns a fine collection of paintings from seventeenth-century Holland, a period which our northern neighbors regard as a golden age of painting. But what is in this collection? When did it come about? And how?
To mark the 200th anniversary of the short-lived United Kingdom of the Netherlands, the City of Ghent will adorn itself in all shades of orange this autumn. The Museum of Fine Arts calls upon the public to take a fresh look at its remarkable collection of Dutch art, which was brought together at the turn of the twentieth century. The collection contains some 60 works by artists as Frans Hals, Jan van Goyen, Willem Claesz. Heda, Albert Cuyp and Roelant Savery, making it one of the finest ensembles outside of the Netherlands.
The paintings will be displayed in a broader context. Surrounding them with drawings, engravings and objects gives the visitor a better understanding of the creative process behind the works. The restoration of works that have so far been kept in the reserves and new historical research have also yielded some surprises, such as the discovery of artists of whom little or no work had been known until today, or the fact that separate paintings turn out to be part of larger sets.
This new presentation forms the first stage in the rearrangement of the museum’s exhibition rooms, inviting visitors to discover, or rediscover, its collections.