As of 2025, the Westfries Museum will be closed to the public until mid-2027. The monumental museum complex will be given a new foundation. The adjoining building will also be incorporated into the new museum. During the closure, temporary exhibitions will be organized at other locations in the city. For more information please visit the museum website.
Information
The West Frisian Museum in Hoorn was founded in 1880 and opened in 1881 as an encyclopedic museum that sought to give a representative picture of the cultural history of West Friesland from prehistoric times to the present day. The collection consists of about 36,000 objects, dating from the Iron Age to the twentieth century. The items from Early Modern times, especially the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, are of particularly fine quality, including some that are of national and even international importance. The highlights of the collection are the silver-gilt Bossu Goblet, made in Antwerp in the 1530s, and a cabinet of curiosities with marquetry, made in Hoorn.
One of the most important paintings in the collection is the double portrait of the Sonck couple, which is attributed to the portrait painter Jan Claesz uit Enkhuizen. It was produced in 1602 and furnished with captions giving the sitters’ names and ages. Other major items in the collection include the portrait of the directors of the Hoorn VOC Chamber, made in 1682 by Jan de Baen, and the Hoorn Panel of Justice, from the courtroom in the old town hall, the central scene of which was made around 1622 by Jacob Waben, while the four other scenes date from ca. 1475–1525.
The museum’s collection is frequently expanded. In 2022 it acquired the painting View of Hoorn (1712) from the artist Caspar van Wittel, who worked in Hoorn.