- Home
- >
- En
- >
- See and do
- >
- The Golden Age of Twente
The Golden Age of Twente
Permanent collection presentation
The story of Rijksmuseum Twenthe is the story of many different art collectors, each with their own artistic interests, but united by a shared desire to house their collections in Rijksmuseum Twenthe. The museum’s story begins with the Van Heek family, textile manufacturers from Enschede, who took the initiative 85 years ago to found a museum “to awaken a sense and love of art in the public of the eastern part of our country.”
Three Van Heek Brothers
The idea for a museum came from Jan Bernard van Heek, who laid the foundation with his collection of paintings from the Golden Age and the 19th century, including masterpieces by Brueghel and Koekkoek. His brother Jan Herman van Heek became the museum’s first director and, over the course of thirty years, enriched it with an invaluable collection of medieval works by artists such as Hans Memling and Jan Mostaert. A third brother, Gerrit Jan van Heek Jr., donated a large collection of nature and animal paintings in the 1940s and 1950s—widely regarded as the most important of its kind worldwide.
From Jan Steen to herman de vries
Starting in the 1960s, the Van Heek family opened the museum to other collectors as well. With the donation of the collection of Enschede textile manufacturer Jan Bernard Scholten, RMT was instantly enriched with masterpieces by Jan Steen, Jacob van Ruisdael, and the Impressionist Alfred Sisley. In the years that followed, donations came from textile manufacturer M.G. van Heel (Delftware and Old Masters), the Martens-Mulder Foundation (17th- and 18th-century silver), collectors Karel Levisson (works on paper by Sluijters, Toorop, Mankes, and Maris, among others), and Ingrid Blans (20th-century prints).
In the field of contemporary art, the museum has acquired significant collections over the past fifteen years from Geert van Beijeren and Adriaan van Ravensteijn of the renowned gallery Art & Project, Sepp Bader, and the No Hero Foundation. Their collections include works by Carel Visser, herman de vries, and Zhang Xiaogang, respectively.
The Golden Age of Twente
The Golden Age of Twente shows how a wide-ranging and remarkably diverse collection was built—one that few museums can match, and in which nearly all major movements in art history are represented.
The exhibition also reveals how the history of RMT is interwoven with the many collectors who, each in their own deeply personal way, left their mark on the museum. Huis van Heek is therefore also the story of Twente itself, as the history of the region unfolds through these patrons—both socially and culturally.
Samenwerking met Huis Bergh
Jan Herman van Heek, de eerste directeur van RMT, woonde in kasteel Huis Bergh te 's-Heerenberg, ver verwijderd van de drukke stad. Dit romantische woonhuis is tegenwoordig een museum waarin ook de sporen van zijn verzameldrift te vinden zijn. Parallel aan de tentoonstelling in RMT worden in Huis Bergh onder de titel Huis van Heek – Heilige Families schilderijen en objecten uit de verzameling van Jan Herman getoond met de Heilige Familie als onderwerp. Rijksmuseum Twenthe zal ten behoeve van deze tentoonstelling het laatmiddeleeuwse topstuk De Boom van Jesse uitlenen aan Huis Bergh. RMT heeft het genoegen om gedurende 2015 het prachtige paneeltje met een engel van de Italiaanse meester Duccio uit Huis Bergh te tonen.
