In the autumn of 2012, the extremely valuable and fragile works of one of Europe’s most brilliant painters, Jan van Eyck (Maaseik? c.1390 – Bruges 1441), are coming to Rotterdam from all over Europe and the United States. Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen is showing the paintings of this artist, long considered the father of oil painting.
In 2008 Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen organised the successful exhibition Early Hollanders. Paintings from the Late Middle Ages. The successor to this exhibition goes one step further back in history and ends with Jan van Eyck (c.1390-1441). The exhibition is an art-historical voyage of discovery and will present the only images we have of Holland in the early Middle Ages. Practically all the paintings that still exist from this period will be assembled in Rotterdam. This is the first time that all these paintings have been brought together. And because of their fragile condition, it will also be the last time. The exhibition will travel from Rotterdam to Berlin where the works will be shown for several months in the Picture Gallery of the Staatliche Museen in Berlin.