Mauritshuis in The Hague ordered to return its Rembrandts

Will the Mauritshuis Museum in The Hague (Netherlands) soon be stripped of a significant part of its collection? This is what fears from a legal action which has just been launched by the heirs of the Dutch collector Abraham Bredius (1855–1946).

The latter are indeed the prestigious institution (famous for housing The Girl with the Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer, circa 1665) from their return no less than 25 paintingsincluding eight precious works by Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669).

A broken commitment

The reason for this formal notice: the museum did not respect his commitment towards the collector Abraham Bredius. This art historian and former director of the Mauritshuis from 1889 to 1909 bequeathed these paintings to him on one condition: that they are always permanently exposed to it.

If five of the paintings concerned – four Rembrandts, including Saul and David (1651–1658) et Two African men (1661), as well as a landscape by Salomon van Ruysdael – can be contemplated in the permanent rooms of the museumthe twenty other paintings in the collection (works by other masters of the Dutch Golden Age such as Jan Steen, Jan van Goyen and Paulus Moreelse) are actually not not currently visible.

The descendants of Abraham Bredius’ “protege”

The procedure was launched by the great-nephew and great-niece of art critic Joseph Kronig (1887–1984), only heir of Bredius who considered him his “protege”. Can an agreement be found? “As long as the case is being investigated, which can take a long time, we cannot make any announcement,” a museum spokesperson told AFP. To be continued…