by Jon Lackman | 30 June 2010 | Baroque/Neoclassical, Museums
A few weeks ago, Gary Schwartz wrote:
Until 27 June a small exhibition of irresistible charm and interest is being held in the Mauritshuis in The Hague, after a run at the Rubenshuis in Antwerp: Willem van Haecht: room for art in 17th-century Antwerp … Van Haecht was the subject of a dissertation that I began to write in 1965 and then abandoned after the new chairman of the department of art history at my university proclaimed “I don’t believe in iconography” and in effect discontinued my degree candidacy … When the news reached me several years ago that the Rubenshuis and Mauritshuis – the owners of his two most important paintings – were organizing an exhibition devoted to van Haecht, I let them know about my research into his work. Here, I thought, was my chance to rid myself of one of the great frustrations of my scholarly life by participating in the preparations for the first van Haecht exhibition ever held. To my chagrin, the organizers ignored my offers and never even consulted me about the exhibition except when they needed contact information concerning potential lenders. When I confronted them with this, I was told that the exhibition was too small to allow for outside advisors … Sadly, the organizers of the exhibition display interest exclusively in the obvious art-world issues of patronage, collecting, display and connoisseurship, to the exclusion of the social, political and religious contexts that were of equal or greater importance to van der Geest and van Haecht. The exhibition pays only the merest lip service to the iconological worlds within the worlds that van Haecht conjures up. The images and captions below will give some idea of the riches on which the Rubenshuis and Mauritshuis have turned their backs …
FYI I hear from the Mauritshuis that “The preliminary design for the 22 million euro project ‘Mauritshuis building for the future’ was unveiled on June 22. The ambitious design links Plein 26, the Art Deco building opposite the Mauritshuis in The Hague which is part of the Nieuwe of Littéraire Sociëteit de Witte, with the museum by means of an underground foyer, thus doubling the square footage and increasing its potential. The project is expected to be completed by mid 2014.” (Full press release.)