Mesdag Collection
The Mesdag Collection is home to the collection of 19th-century art assembled by seascape painter Hendrik Willem Mesdag and his wife.
Hendrik Willem Mesdag was an artist, collector and cultural entrepreneur. A research project was launched in 2011 to explore how Mesdag – together with his wife Sientje – fulfilled these different roles, how they reinforced one another, and how he became one of the most powerful figures in the world of late-nineteenth-century Dutch art.
Mesdag and his collections
The aim of the research is to raise our knowledge of Mesdag’s collection policy, his tastes and his ideas on how the collection should be presented. It also explores the contrast between his personal collection and the museum corpus, and identifies how he came to acquire the artworks and, in some cases, to sell them on. Mesdag’s national and international network, and the role he played in it, are also important. Unusually, the research focuses not only on the current Mesdag Collection, but also on identifying which other objects once belonged to it.
Centenary of Mesdag’s death in 2015
The research project culminated in 2015 – the centenary of Mesdag’s death – with a publication and online access to the original and current collection and to Mesdag’s correspondence. An exhibition on watercolour painting in the Netherlands has also been organized in collaboration with the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, together with a symposium.
Collaboration
Th##e research is being carried out in close collaboration with the Netherlands Institute for Art History (RKD) in The Hague.
Contact
Please contact info@demesdagcollectie.nl for more information.