Music & Dance
in Painting of the Dutch Golden Age
Available from June 2020 onwards
- Download brochure
- Video
This exhibition celebrates the forgotten arts of music and dance in the Golden Age through paintings from that
same era. The masterpieces on show reflect the insatiable appetite at the time for singing songs, playing musical instruments and dancing to the music performed. As vibrant and alive as when they were created some four centuries ago, the paintings exhibited here are a window into time and simply radiate passion, energy and
joie-de-vivre.
Music and Dance in the Dutch Golden Age of Painting is the first ever exhibition dedicated to this theme.
On show are paintings from the Northern and Southern Netherlands, painted between 1600 and 1700. Visitors are able to see Old-Master paintings from European private collections – never seen before – in the entirely new context of music and dance.
The show is the result of two years of research carried by The Hoogsteder Museum Foundation in collaboration with the Royal Conservatory of The Hague.
The story of Music & Dance is told in 5 chapters:
- Wealthy Merchants and Ladies of Leisure
- Peasants and Vagabonds
- Churches to Battlefield
- Courtly Galliards to the Egg Dance
- Hidden Meaning
Multimedia tools make this exhibition very suitable for all ages. A playlist on Spotify has been created so visitors can listen to the music played in each painting. In addition, videos demonstrate how the upper and lower classes amused themselves dancing.
