Watercolours — Teylers Museum

Watercolours

Exhibition about the most beautiful Dutch watercolours from the 19th century

Feb 21, 2015 to Jun 08, 2015

Exhibition Room

Watercolours

Come and admire the most beautiful Dutch watercolours from the 19th century. A special two-part exhibition mounted jointly by The Mesdag Collection and Teylers Museum, with masterpieces by Mesdag, Mauve, Koekkoek, Maris, Mondrian, and many others.

Heyday

The 19th century was the heyday of the Dutch watercolour. This exhibition shows how the watercolour technique developed in the course of the century from the 'coloured drawings' of Romantic masters such as Koekkoek and Nuyen to the watercolours produced by the Hague School and the innovative Tachtigers movement ('the Eighties'). Famous artists such as Mauve, Weissenbruch, Israëls and Breitner developed the medium to full maturity. The landscapes, interiors and cityscapes they brought to life with water and pigment on paper are among the finest works of their oeuvres.

Watercolours in the 19th-century Art Scene

The exhibition traces the path through which, thanks to these and other artists, watercolours occupied an ever more important place in the 19th-century art scene. They embraced a wide range of visual idioms. Alongside the Impressionist and atmospheric landscapes of the Hague School, artists such as Springer and Bles excelled, by contrast, in watercolours painted with meticulous precision.

Teylers Museum and the Watercolour

Teylers Museum possesses a large group of 19th-century watercolours, collected by the then curator Hendrik Jacobus Scholten (himself an able watercolourist). Besides these works owned by the museum itself, the exhibition is supplemented by loans of the most beautiful watercolours from other Dutch collections.

Children's Treasure Hunt

**The treasure hunts are only available in Dutch
For children there is an exciting treasure hunt! You can download it here or fetch it free of charge from the desk in the entrance hall. Filled in all the answers? When you've finished, you can go and pick up a gift. 

A Unique Partnership

The exhibition is a joint venture with The Mesdag Collection in The Hague, which, in its own show, highlights the key role of Hendrik Willem Mesdag as a maker, collector and promoter of watercolours. The exhibition is accompanied by a richly-illustrated catalogue produced by Thoth Publishers.