Museum Geelvinck-Hinlopen
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Museum Geelvinck-Hinlopen is a canal-side mansion in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. This patrician mansion, close to the Rembrandtplein, was built for Albert Geelvinck (1647-1693) and Sara Hinlopen (1660-1749), then in an attractive and new laid-out section of the city towards the Amstel. In the year 1687 the couple moved into this double wide house, with storage rooms in the cellar, under the attic and in the warehouse on Keizersgracht 633, now the entrance.
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[edit] History
Albert Geelvinck came from a upperclass family, who had acquired their wealth through merchant shipping to Spain, Africa, Surinam and the West Indies. Sara Hinlopen came from a family of originally Flemish cloth merchants, private investors and in an early stage involved in the governing the city and the Dutch East India Company. Both families belonged to the regents of Amsterdam. The republican Geelvincks delivered five burgomasters (mayors) in the 17th and 18th century. They too served in the Admiralty of Amsterdam, Dutch West India Company or the Society of Surinam.
Sara became an orphan at the age of six. Then she and her sister Johanna were raised by a stepmother Lucia Wijbrants. Because the cooperation did not work out well, they moved in with Jacob J. Hinlopen, their uncle, in 1672. Keen on leaving the house, she married in 1680 the fifteen year older lawyer Albert Geelvinck. A few months before the girls came by lot in the possession of the paintings by Rembrandt, Jan Lievens and Gabriel Metsu, collected by their father Jan J. Hinlopen. Joan Huydecoper van Maarsseveen, their grandfather, a merchant, a burgomaster and a private investor, is also known as an art-collector and a maecenas; Joan Huydecoper jr., their uncle was very keen on gardening and involved in the Hortus Botanicus. As a burgomaster and an uncle he kept an interesting diary with some details about the girls.
[edit] Garden and rooms open to the public
You enter the museum through the former coach and warehouse on Keizersgracht 633, then step into a magnificent, spacious and quiet garden. The back gives the impression of a Renaissance garden. The front part is a formal and symmetrical French garden. It has a large pond and a sparkling fountain. Most of the time there is an exhibition of statues; if not one can listen to the birds or smell the flowers. Going up the stairs to the main floor of the museum, there are four rooms open to the public.
The Blue room in a Louis XVI or neo-classical style has an ensemble of five wallpaper panels, painted around 1788 by Egbert van Drielst. Van Drielst was a romantic painter, who in his style was influenced by Meindert Hobbema and Jacob van Ruisdael. On all the panels nature is idealized, the horizon is on eyeheight. Originally the panels were designed for a house on the Keizersgracht, then decorating a room in New York and Miami, but since 1990 they are back.
The Red Room is decorated in the Louis XV or Rococo style. The high ceiling and the fixed mirrors are impressive. There are six 17th century paintings in this room: a Flamish fantasy landscape with tree, game and birds by Gillis d'Hondecoeter; also depicting Christ healing the blind. Another painting is depicting Christ and the Samaritan woman, by Pieter de Grebber, a religious painter, influenced by Rubens. Further there is still life with flowers by Daniel Seghers, a Jesuit from Antwerp.
The ceiling in the library is in a neo-classical style, resembling the work of the Scottish architect and interior decorator Robert Adam. He was inspired by the Domus Aurea in Rome and the palace of Diocletian in Split.
In the hall one can see a tapestry, made in Brussels around 1600, depicting Cyrus the Great and the rich Croesus, after his defeat and the revolt of the citizens. The carton was designed by Michiel Coxcie, the Flemish Raphael, in order of the Spanish royal family. The story comes from Herodotus, (book I: 155).
The Chinese Room has eight Rococo wallpaper panels on canvas with fantasy flowers and birds, vegetables and chinoiserie, made somewhere around the year 1765. The artist, probably Jeremias Wachsmuth, or Cornelis 't Kind used engravings by Jean-Baptiste Pillement, then famous for his Chinoiserie.
In June the museum participates in the Open Garden Days. The museum programs concerts, sometimes on the Broadwood square piano.
[edit] External links
- Website of the Geelvinck-Hinlopen Huis
- (Dutch) Bureau Monumentenzorg on Herengracht 518
- Temporary exhibition on Russian Fine Art, Realism
