Leonardo da Vinci

For our last meeting of 2018, AG DUTCH & FLEMISH traveled to Haarlem.

On 23 November, we paid a visit to the exhibition on Leonardo da Vinci at the Teylers Museum. On the eve of the 500th anniversary of his death, the museum is mounting the first major exhibition of drawings by the Italian master in the Netherlands. We were welcomed by Michiel Plomp, chief curator of the art collections, who gave us a thorough introduction on the project and the contents of the exhibition. Our members subsequently were able to study the drawings of human emotion, both careful studies and caricatural sketches, that are the focus of this exhibition. With over thirty magnificent drawings by Leonardo himself and a similar number by his contemporaries and followers, the museum indeed organized a remarkable show.

The group then moved on to the Frans Hals Museum to see the exhibition on Frans Hals and the Moderns. This show deals with the influence of the seventeenth-century portrait painter on modern artists such as Vincent van Gogh and John Singer Sargent. Our trip was concluded with drinks at a local craft beer bar. We would like to thank Michiel Plomp for his hospitality and are looking forward to the other exhibitions across Europe that will be dedicated to Leonardo da Vinci in 2019.