The devastating fire in Notre-Dame again showed how vulnerable historic buildings can be. And the same is true for Dutch monuments, Bjorn Peters, consultant on fire safety of monuments at DGMR and guest lecturer at TU Delft, and Walter de Koning of the foundation for monument care and restoration ERM said to NU.nl.
Art
Apr 16 '19 11:00
"It was like a horror movie, I couldn't stop watching", art historian Sanne Frenquin said to NOS about the devastating fire at Notre-Dame in Paris. "It is impossible to imagine how great the damage is."
Apr 4 '19 14:20
The revolver it is widely believed Dutch artist Vincent van Gogh used to take his own life in 1890, will be going up for auction in Paris on June 19th. Auction house AuctionArt believes the 7 mm Lefaucheux revolver, which it dubbed "the most famous weapon in art history", will be sold for between 40 thousand and 60 thousand euros, Artnet reports.
Mar 26 '19 11:50
Dutch art detective Arthur Brand tracked down a lost painting by Pablo Picasso titled Buste De Femme, painted in 1938. The painting of Picasso's mistress Dora Maar was stolen from the yacht of a Saudi sheikh in France in 1999 and has been missing ever since. The stolen painting, valued at 4 million euros at the time of its theft, has now been transferred to an insurance company, the Volkskrant reports.
Mar 12 '19 10:50
The Rijksmuseum is in talks with Sri Lanka and Indonesia about the restitution of art taken from those countries in colonial times. Rijksmusuem director Taco Dibbits called it scandalous that the Netherlands hasn't worried about this issue before now. "We should have done this much earlier. There is no excuse for that", he said to newspaper Trouw.
Mar 7 '19 08:53
The Netherlands' national museum for world cultures NMVW will generously return art taken through colonial theft to their countries of origin. The museum will not wait for claims, but is actively searching its own collections for objects that qualify for restitution, Trouw and NRC report.
Feb 15 '19 16:00
Exhibition 'Everyone a Photographer' currently in the Rijksmuseum shows the start of amateur photography. The over 100 year old photos on display are all remarkable in their unremarkable way - a baby photo, a family portrait, a seflie in the mirror. The exhibition focuses on how photography changed from solemnly posed portraits to snapshots of spontaneity at the turn of the previous century. "You can say that at that moment the daily life came into photography", Mattie Boom, who obtained her doctorate with these photos, said to NOS.
Feb 15 '19 10:10
The so-called Golden Fleece in the Flipje en Streekmuseum in Tiel is a fake. The 'golden pendant', said to belong to Tiel knight Claes Vijg, does not date from 1559 nor is it made of gold. It's a bad copy made of brass with a thin layer of gold paint, museum director Alexandra van Steen discovered, De Gelderlander reports.
Feb 6 '19 11:50
A golden love ring from the Middle Ages was recently found in the province of Utrecht. This is the first time ever that a so-called 'black letter posy ring' is found in the Netherlands, Landscape Heritage Utrecht's archeology department announced. The location where this unique discovery was made was not disclosed, at the request of the anonymous finder.
The love ring dates from between 1375 and 1550, according to the organization. Sweet messages were engraved on such rings, like 'think of me' or 'I love only you'. These rings were mainly made in England for women.
Feb 4 '19 09:08
An important American flag from the Second World War will be displayed in the Kunsthal in Rotterdam for two weeks, starting Monday. The D-Day flag flew on landing ship LCC 60 on 6 June 1944, the only landing ship that managed to reach Utah Beach during the Allied invasion of Normandy. According to experts, this is one of the most important objects of the invasion that is still in private hands, RTL Nieuws reports.
Jan 25 '19 14:30
Years of research at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam into Vincent van Gogh's famous Sunflowers revealed that the painting is in a stable, but fragile state. "That is why we have decided that Sunflowers will no longer travel away from the museum. From now on, this highlight of our collection will stay at home in Amsterdam, available for all our visitors to see every day of the year", museum director Axel Ruger said on the museum's website.
Jan 8 '19 10:50
D66 parliamentarian Salima Belhaj called on Prime Minister Mark Rutte to ask the Royal Family to temporarily abandon the auction of a number of artworks. The Royals want to sell the works at an American auction, but Belhaj hopes they can stay in the Netherlands, NOS reports.
Dec 6 '18 15:50
The Hermitage museum in Amsterdam is giving free entry to anyone called Amalia or Catharina on Friday, to celebrate princess Amalia's 15th birthday. Anyone with a similar name like Katja, Kate, Amelia or Amelie can also get in for free. All you need is a valid identity card, the Telegraaf reports.
Dec 4 '18 12:50
Only hours after the iconic I Amsterdam letters were removed from the Museumplein, new giant letters appeared in front of the Rijksmuseum. These letters spell out 'HUH', and are Amsterdam artist Pauline Wiersema's way of protesting against the disappearance of I Amsterdam, AT5 reports.
Wiersema designed the letters for Dutch Design Week and put them in use on Monday. According to her, the removal of the I Amsterdam letters will not solve the problem with crowds at all.
Dec 4 '18 12:00
Henk Laarmans experienced every bargain hunter's dream come true. He bought a painting for 75 euros at a thrift store, and then sold it for over 30 thousand euros on auction on Monday. The painting in question is 'A sunny day in the dunes' by Johan Aarts, RTL Nieuws reports.
After buying the pointillist painting at a thrift store, Laarmans took it to an art expert at Tussen Kunst and Kitsch, who told him he had something valuable in his possession.
Nov 29 '18 11:40
The police arrested a 16-year-old boy for stealing 150 thousand euros worth of museum pieces from a museum in Amsterdam. The young thief was caught when he went to an art dealer with an Egyptian figurine from the 4th century BC asking for more information about the object, the police said.
The teenager was unlucky in his choice of art dealers, because this dealer had previously sold that specific figurine to an Amsterdam museum. She decided to call the museum and ask whether they had lost it, and that turned out to be the case.
Nov 19 '18 13:16
Rumors that an author recovered a stolen Picasso painting, taken in a daring 2012 heist at the Kunsthal in Rotterdam, were the result of a hoax perpetrated by a Belgian theater group. The group, called Berlin, duped Dutch writer Mira Feticu as part of an apparent stunt to promote performances of a play spotlighting a Dutch art forger.
Oct 16 '18 09:18
The Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam will start restoring Rembrandt van Rijn's famous painting The Night Watch in July next year. The painting will be restored in the hall where it's currently hanging, and visitors to the museum are welcome to watch the process. The restoration can also be followed online, the museum announced on Tuesday.
The Night Watch will be restored in a clear glass chamber designed by French architect Jean Michel Wilmotte. It's last major restoration happened 40 years ago, following an attack on the painting in 1975.
Aug 13 '18 14:40
Three hundred drones lit up the Amsterdam sky above the IJ with a light show on Saturday night. The drones flew in different formations, inspired by the flight patterns of starlings, AT5 reports.
The show premiered in Miami last year. A special exception was made to have the show in Amsterdam on Saturday, because drones are actually forbidden in the airspace around Schiphol airport.
The show was scheduled to take place on Friday, but had to be postponed due to bad weather.
Aug 3 '18 14:40
On Tuesday the police recovered seven valuable paintings that were stolen from a resident of Voerendaal. The paintings include works by Mondriaan, Mesdag, Tischbein and V. Kulagina, among others, and are worth hundreds of thousands of euros, the police said in a statement on Thursday. Three suspects were arrested.
Jul 24 '18 16:00
On Monday the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam called on people who make the Hajj, the pilgrimage, to Mecca to take selfies of their trip for a new exhibition, despite the fact that the Saudi authorities banned taking photos and selfies at religious and spiritual places in the country last year, AT5 reports.
The photo ban also applies to the Masjid al-Haram mosque, which is known as a pilgrimage site during Hajj.
Jul 3 '18 13:30
Amsterdam West wants to put up an artwork in the district showing deceased mayor Eberhard van der Laan's final instruction to his people: "Take good care of our city and each other". The district is calling on Amsterdam residents to help pick where this artwork will go, AT5 reports.
Jun 15 '18 12:50
Artist Joost Zwanenburg made an error when he painted a new war memorial at the Herenhof shopping center in Alphen aan den Rijn. The plane depicted on the monument is not the Halifax that crashed in 1944, as it was meant to be, but a different type, NU.nl reports.
Jun 11 '18 15:20
The Amsterdam Art Council advised the Stedelijk Museum to focus on its own comprehensive collection instead of trying to compete with a "jet set" of super rich art collectors and museums with much higher budgets, NU.nl reports.
In December the then Amsterdam mayor and aldermen asked the Art Council to advise the Stedelijk Museum on the future positioning of the museum. Focusing on its own collection was the main part of that advice, according to the newspaper.
