Museum Van Loon is a

museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of artistic, cultural, historical, or scientific importance. Many public museums make th ...

located in a canalside house alongside the

Keizersgracht The Keizersgracht (; "Emperor's canal") is a canal in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It is the second of the three main Amsterdam canals that together form the Grachtengordel, or canal belt, and lies between the inner Herengracht and outer Prinsengr ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

. The museum is named after the family Van Loon that lived in the house from the 19th century.

History

The canal house where the museum resides was built in 1672, and served as the home of artist

Ferdinand Bol Ferdinand Bol (24 June 1616 – 24 August 1680) was a Dutch painter, etcher and draftsman. Although his surviving work is rare, it displays Rembrandt's influence; like his master, Bol favored historical subjects, portraits, numerous self-port ...

. From 1884 to 1945 the Van Loons lived in the house. Thora van Loon-Egidius, who lived in the house, was a

lady-in-waiting A lady-in-waiting or court lady is a female personal assistant at a court, attending on a royal woman or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe, a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman but of lower rank than the woman to whom sh ...

for

Wilhelmina of the Netherlands Wilhelmina (; Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria; 31 August 1880 – 28 November 1962) was Queen of the Netherlands from 1890 until her abdication in 1948. She reigned for nearly 58 years, longer than any other Dutch monarch. Her reign saw World Wa ...

Architecture and collection

The house was designed in 1672 by

Adriaan Dortsman Adriaan Dortsman (1635, Vlissingen – 1682, Amsterdam), was a Dutch Golden Age architect of Amsterdam. Biography According to the RKD he moved to Amsterdam in 1667 and is known for drawings and architectural designs.

, the famous Dutch architect known for having created the

Ronde Lutherse Kerk The Ronde Lutherse Kerk (''round Lutheran church'') or Koepelkerk ('' cupola church'') is a former Lutheran church in Amsterdam, Netherlands, on the Singel canal. The church can be easily seen from the Singel, identified by its copper dome. Hist ...

. There are four sculptures on top of the house, representing Ceres,

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...

Minerva Minerva (; ett, Menrva) is the Roman goddess of wisdom, justice, law, victory, and the sponsor of arts, trade, and strategy. Minerva is not a patron of violence such as Mars, but of strategic war. From the second century BC onward, the R ...

and Vulcan. The interior of the house has been renovated, and appears reminiscent of its look in the 18th-century, with wood paneling and

stucco Stucco or render is a construction material made of aggregates, a binder, and water. Stucco is applied wet and hardens to a very dense solid. It is used as a decorative coating for walls and ceilings, exterior walls, and as a sculptural and a ...

work. The upstairs features several paintings of Roman sports figures and a bedroom that is decorated with a

Romanticism Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

period painting of Italy. The house also has fake bedroom doors: the 18th-century owners desired to have symmetry in the interior design so they painted the real bedroom doors to match the walls and fake doors to appear real in a location where one would assume a door would be.

Exhibitions

The museum regularly organizes contemporary art exhibitions: Immersion (2011), Foam in Van Loon III : Daniëlle van Ark (2012), Suspended Histories (2013), Presentations by Asian contemporary art dealers (2013), AIR in Museum Van Loon with Quirine Racké & Helena Muskens (2014), Something Thrown in Way of the Observer (2015), AIR in Museum Van Loon with Jasmijn Visser (2015), Foam in Van Loon IV (2016), Turkish Tulips : Gavin Turk (2017), Presentation Thérèse Schwartze Award (2017), Güler Ates : Unfold (2017), Ronit Porat : Sophiornithidae (2017), Julien Spiewak : Corps de style (2018), Marijn Bax : Mores (2018), Stéphanie Saadé : The Travels of Here and Now (2019).

References

External links

Museum Van Loon
(official website) {{Authority control Museums in Amsterdam Museums established in 1973 Historic house museums in the Netherlands