Total design

About the project

Countless paintings were made in the seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries to decorate the interiors of the homes of wealthy Dutch citizens. They were installed on ceilings, above doors and mantelpieces, and filled large empty spaces on the walls. In the eighteenth century, in particular, artists and their customers, went to great lengths to make an interior an ensemble reflecting all the arts. Illusionistic painted landscapes and mythological scenes lent an added, exotic dimension to the home.

The museum’s collection of eighteenth-century interior decorations consists of 80 paintings, and is still growing. They are by leading artists like Jacob de Wit (1695-1754), Cornelis Troost (1696-1750) and Jurriaan Andriessen (1742-1819).

Aim of the project

The Rijksmuseum’s collection of interior decorations has never been the subject of systematic and critical study, so in 2014 it was decided to make it the subject of a research project. This involved registering and documenting the 80 eighteenth-century interior paintings, and carrying out new research into their style, technique, iconography, origins and patrons. The research involves close collaboration between curators and conservators. The findings will be published on the Rijksmuseum website and form the first part of the museum’s catalogue of eighteenth-century paintings. In the meantime, individual studies will be published in scholarly journals, with the results of ongoing research being presented in lectures for both professional and wider audiences.

Related publications

• P. van Duin, ‘The Conservation and Installation of the Beuning Room in the Rijksmuseum’, in The Rijksmuseum bulletin 65 (2017), pp. 96-111
• J. de Fouw en I. Verslype, 'Aeneas and Callisto: two ceiling paintings by Jacob de Wit mixed up', in The Rijksmuseum Bulletin, 67 (2019), pp. 197-215
• J. de Fouw, ‘Rococo and religion: a room for Hernhutters in an Amsterdam canal house’, in The Rijksmuseum bulletin, 65 (2017), pp. 28-41
• J. de Fouw, ‘Amerika in Dordrecht: een allegorie op het verdrag van 1782 in een Dordtse koopmanswoning’, in De Negentiende Eeuw 40 (2016), nr. 4, pp. 274-290
• J. de Fouw, ‘Een Dordtse interieurschildering in het Rijksmuseum’, in Dordrecht Monumenteel 60 (juli 2016), pp. 50-53
• J. de Fouw, 'Acquisition of Jurriaan Andriessen painted wall hanging with peace and painted wall hanging with bacchante.' in The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 63 (2015), no. 1, pp. 104-105.
• L. Vos, R. Harmanni, I. Verslype, J. de Fouw, J. Reynaerts, M. van Eikema Hommes. “Researching and presenting fragments of late 17th and 18th Century Dutch painted chambers: “re-presenting” Jurriaan Andriessen (1743-1819), a case-study”, in Postprints of the American Institute of Conservation, AIC 43rd Annual Meeting Miami FL 2015
• L. Vos, I. Verslype, R. Harmanni en M. van Eikema Hommes, ‘Rooms without Houses, Paintings without Walls: Researching and Presenting Fragments of Late Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Painted Rooms’, in The Rijksmuseum Bulletin 65 (2017), pp. 78-95.

Related events

• ‘Jurriaan Andriessen. Twee verloren gewaande schilderingen na 230 jaar terug in de Beuningkamer van 8 maart t/m 4 juli 2017’, presentation of two rediscovered interior paintings by Jurriaan Andriessen.
• Workshop on the Beuningkamer, part of the Summer School ‘Conservation and Humanities: Objects as evidence’, Rijksmuseum and Bard Graduate Center, 2016, by Reinier Baarsen, Paul van Duin, Josephina de Fouw and Lisette Vos.

Lectures

• Josephina de Fouw, ‘Amerika in Dordrecht: een allegorie op het verdrag van 1782 in een Dordtse koopmanswoning’, Amerika! convention, Werkgroep De Negentiende Eeuw, Dordrecht 2015
• Expert-meeting in the Andriessenkamer, Herengracht 524, Amsterdam, with presentations by Josephina de Fouw and Ige Verslype, 2018
• Lisette Vos, ‘Researching and presenting fragments of late 17th and 18th Century Dutch painted chambers: “re-presenting” Jurriaan Andriessen (1743-1819), a case-study ‘, American Institute for Conservation 43rd Annual Meeting, Miami 2015

Related projects

From Isolation to Coherence: an Integrated Technical, Visual and Historical Study of 17th and 18th Century Dutch Painting Ensembles, NWO vernieuwingsimpuls Vidi-project. The Rijksmuseum is a partner in this five-year research project.

Partners and sponsors

This project is supported by the Fonds De Haseth-Möller/ Rijksmuseum fonds and the Pruikenburg Fonds.