Van Gogh in
Musée Ancien
Mutsaardstraat 31
The building on Mutsaardstraat still exists, but does not house the museum collection anymore. Since 1890, the collection has been housed in the newer building of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts at Leopold de Waelplaats 2.
Van Gogh in
Musée Ancien
After his arrival in Antwerp, Vincent visited various museums. At the Musée Ancien, which housed classical art, he saw paintings by Dutch and Flemish old masters such as Peter Paul Rubens, Frans Hals, Rembrandt, Jacob Jordaens and Jan van Eyck. Vincent especially loved the painting The Fisher Boy by Frans Hals (c. 1630). He particularly admired it because:
“I see so many types among the people here who remind me of that age.” Read the complete letter
Vincent was a fan of Hals’s work. He admired Hals’s and Rembrandt’s quick painting style and the way they rendered shapes and forms using just a few brushstrokes. For Vincent, it was a pleasure to see paintings that had not been “painstakingly smoothed out”.
Useful links
Relevant letters from Vincent
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Guido Persoons
Mark Tralbaut
Louis van Tilborg en Ella Hendriks
Ella Hendriks en Louis van Tilborgh
Marije Vellekoop, Sjraar van Heugten