CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Profiling Dutch and Flemish art in your museum

Lars Hendrikman

A minority of our CODART colleagues work in museums that are either mostly devoted to Dutch and Flemish art, or are affiliated with large departments of Netherlandish art within major (national) museums. Most CODART members, however, work in more modest institutions with considerably smaller collections of Dutch and Flemish art, which often “compete” with other fields of interest. What should the position of Dutch and Flemish art be in the latter museums? In the case of the Netherlands and Belgium should the emphasis in our mission statements be on Netherlandish art? Should this also be the case for other museums? And if so, why? Is Netherlandish art overestimated due to the prestige of the Flemish primitives and the Dutch Golden Age?

About Lars Hendrikman

Lars Hendrikman received his MA (cum laude) in art history from Groningen University in 1997, and continued working there in the Art Histort deptartment until 2003. In 2006 he was appointed curator of Old Masters at the Bonnefantenmuseum Maastricht, where he curated exhibitions within the framework Rijksmuseum Maastricht (2007-2009). His publications mainly deal with Netherlandish art of the 15th-16th centuries. He is currently finalizing his dissertation on Bernard van Orley.