homenews

Rijksmuseum Twenthe is located in the city of Enschede, in the east of the Netherlands. It was founded through the initiative of the textile baron Jan Bernard van Heek, who wished that his painting collection was housed in a new state museum in Enschede. Thanks to the persistence of his family the museum was built after his death and openend in 1930. Although the basis of the museum was formed by some 140 artworks, the collection was considerably expanded and has now about 8000 objects from the thirteenth century to the present day. Private benefactors have played an important role in this growth. In the 1960s the collections of paintings from the seventeenth and nineteenth century of textile manufacturers J.B. Scholten and M.G. van Heel were added to the museum collection. The Van Heel collection also contained a few hundred pieces of seventeenth and eighteenth-century Dutch Delftware.

The museum collection consists of several blue and white seventeenth-century Delft objects, such as vases, salt cellars, a ‘Persian blue’ jug and a pyramidal flower vase. The majority of the objects were produced in the eighteenth century, such as vases with the cashmere palette, Imari-style plates, trompe l’ceil tureens and many colorful figures and animals. An interesting object is this blue and white money box, which is dated May 15, 1743. Money banks rarely survive, because they were either shaken or broken to remove the contents. Since the banks were usually gifts on special occasions, some of them are dated. The decoration of this bank is a nice combination of both Western and Oriental influences.

The National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) is the oldest and most visited gallery in Australia. Situated over two buildings – NGV International and NGV Australia – the Gallery hosts a wide range of international and local artists, exhibitions, programs and events; from contemporary art to major international historic exhibitions, fashion and design, architecture, sound and dance.

Founded in 1861, today the NGV holds the most significant collection of art in the region. The museum houses a collection of more than 70,000 works that span thousands of years, many disciplines and styles. From art from Australian to Asian arts and international fine and decorative arts.

The international decorative arts collection includes several Delftware objects, the most important pieces dating from the seventeenth century. For example a pair of blue and white lidded baluster vases marked for Lambertus van Eenhoorn. These exceptionally large lidded vases would have stretched the technical and artistic abilities of the factory to their limit. The vases were made for display, as symbols of wealth and prestige, and would most likely have sat on a table, on top of a cupboard or on columns flanking a doorway. Such vases were produced for export to other European courts, particularly that of William III and Queen Mary II, under whose patronage the Delft factories flourished. Another highlight, which was also produced for the great courts of Europe as a symbol of wealth and prestige, is a beautifully decorated pyramidal flower vase marked for Adrianus Kocx.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is the only museum in the United States entirely dedicated to historical and contemporary design. Located on the Upper East Side of New York, the museum was originally named the Cooper Union Museum for the Arts of Decoration and was founded by three sisters, Eleanor Garnier Hewitt, Amy Hewitt Green and Sarah Cooper Hewitt in 1897. The sisters wanted to open a museum for decoration within the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, a privately funded college established by their grandfather, the industrialist Peter Cooper.  

The museum drew strong inspiration from the remarkable collection of the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris. The collection was conceived as “a practical working laboratory,” where students, designers, and the public could be inspired directly by objects.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum has an impressive collection of over 250,000 objects that span twenty-four centuries of history. One of the most appealing objects in the collection is a blue and white bird cage, which is one of the most rare Delftware objects to exist. The earthenware object, possibly inspired by a wooden or wire birdcage, was a technical tour-de-force that would have been extremely difficult to successfully execute. The birdcage was acquired by the Hewitt sisters in 1916, when they were traveling throughout Europe in search for the most remarkable objects to display in the museum.