Dear Members,
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the American Friends of the Mauritshuis, I welcome this opportunity to share with you our progress over the past year. We are deeply grateful for your valuable friendship and commitment to joining our efforts in promoting and supporting this artistic jewel of The Netherlands.
As you may remember, we entered into a collaboration with the prestigious Fulbright Program in 2016. We have been making great progress this past year in raising funds for a dedicated endowment in support of this important fellowship program. Thanks to some of our most loyal donors, we are now more than half way toward our goal of raising $500,000 which will support the continuance of the fellowship for years to come. We hope we can count on your ongoing support, and if you would like to make an extra tax-exempt donation to our Fulbright Program as the year prepares to draw to a close, please reach out to me directly at monasadler at aol.com.
You will be delighted to know that the Mauritshuis has enjoyed another successful year. With the recent opening of a new exhibition, National Trust – Dutch Masters from British Country Houses, twenty-two paintings from twelve National Trust houses are now on view. Never before has such a large group of Dutch paintings owned by the National Trust traveled outside the United Kingdom. If your travels during the holidays bring you to or near The Hague, please don’t miss this spectacularly-designed exhibition which will be on view until January 6, 2019.
The New Year 2019 marks the 350th anniversary of Rembrandt van Rijn’s death. This specially-designated “Rembrandt Year” will be marked by special events and exhibitions honoring this pre-eminent Dutch Master throughout the Netherlands. The Mauritshuis has one of the world’s most renowned collections of paintings by Rembrandt and will exhibit all of the paintings that are part of the permanent collection attributed to Rembrandt. Next October, the Mauritshuis will also present the first-ever retrospective of paintings by Nicolaes Maes – considered Rembrandt’s most talented pupil. The exhibition will include a very special painting by Rembrandt, The Sacred Family, which will be on loan from the legendary Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. This work not only makes clear the very special connection between Maes and Rembrandt, but it has special relevance in this Rembrandt Year.
Our new Fulbright Fellow Kathryn Harada will be contributing to this project by researching and conserving two portraits by Maes from the Mauritshuis’s permanent collection.
17 October 2019 – 19 January 2020 – The Mauritshuis presents an exhibition on Nicolaes Maes, one of Rembrandt’s most talented pupils, in the autumn of 2019. This is the first retrospective exhibition of this painter from Dordrecht. Maes started his career painting biblical representations, which clearly show his master´s influence. In subsequent years he painted intimate domestic scenes, which usually focussed on women engaged in household chores. Beginning in the 1660s, Maes developed an elegant style of portraiture that was popular with his clients in Dordrecht and Amsterdam. Featuring over thirty paintings the exhibition shows all aspects of Maes’s varied oeuvre.
Thank you for your continued appreciation of the importance of the Mauritshuis, as one of today’s most important and renowned museums. Your support makes such a difference in our ability to promote its continued relevance and appeal to art lovers not only here in the United States but internationally. We look forward to sharing our continued progress. With best wishes to you and yours for a wonderful holiday season and New Year!
Sincerely,
Monica S. Sadler
President