Hoogsteder Journal No. 2

In the coming months various paintings from Hoogsteder & Hoogsteder will be on show in a number of exhibitions in Dutch museums.
The School Class by Jan Joseph Horemans II (1714-after 1790) is on loan from 27 March for Children of All Ages, an exhibition in the North Brabant Museum in Den Bosch. This presentation of cultural history explores how children have lived throughout the centuries. The exhibits range from children's portraits to clothes, furniture, dolls and silver rattles.

Still lifes with flowers and fruit are surely among the most popular genres in Dutch art. Few can remain untouched by the brilliant colours, the profusion of detail and the unparalleled rendering of texture with which these bouquets and fruits are made almost tangible. The names of Golden Age specialists, painters such as Ambrosius Bosschaert, Abraham van beyeren and Jan Davidsz. De Heem, heve become bywords among art ethousiasts. Perheps less well known is that in Holland fine flower and fruit pieces continued to be painted until well into the eighteenth century. A pair of pendants from 1779 by the Hague artist Johan Christiaan Roedig (1750-1801) - on show in our spring exhibition - are a case in pint.

People regularly come to our gallery for advice about restoration and conservation. In some cases me recommend that the painting be re-lined. What does re-lining actually entail?

Artistic value

When asked how museums should compete with today's overwhelmingly visual culture, Rudi Fuchs remarked, 'I once said that the museum fulfills the old-fashioned idea of a school. You go there to learn to look at things you know nothing about. Paintings can have a certain slowness about them. They are created gradually. You have to view them patiently. Many people may find that difficult [...] I can get really excited when I look at a painting."

One of our recent acquisitions is an Italian landscape with women bathing by a bridge. According to an old label on the back, this copper panel was formerly attributed to the famous Utrecht painter Cornelis van Poelenburch. During restoration the letters W.R. appeared in the middle of the dark foreground. This discovery set us wondering: who could these letters refer to and what might be known about this artist?

This sping, under the title Art on Wings, the Mauritshuis Museum is presenting an exiting show of late-medieval alterpiece panels which - now seperated - once formed part of a larger work of art.