Around 2005 to 2006 a plan was made to organise a Hieronymus Bosch exhibition as part of the festivities in 2016 marking the painter’s death 500 years earlier. The city of ’s-Hertogenbosch, commonly called Den Bosch, was his birthplace.
It was necessary to start planning so far in advance because there wasn’t a single work of the world-famous artist in our city. Without these it would obviously be impossible to develop the exhibition.
So the interdisciplinary Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) began in 2010, directed by myself and Matthijs Ilsink: an initiative from the city of ’s-Hertogenbosch to document Bosch’s entire oeuvre in accordance with a strict protocol, using the most advanced investigative techniques. The BRCP also aimed to make restoration possible where necessary, on condition that the result of the research and restoration would be presented in Het Noordbrabants Museum using the original paintings.
The exhibition Hieronymus Bosch – Visions of Genius was organised by Charles de Mooij, the director of Het Noordbrabants Museum, helped by Ilsink and me. The BRCP’s investigative sessions and negotiations for the loan of artworks ended in 2015.
Meanwhile, production began on the 192-page exhibition catalogue, a new two-part Bosch monograph with catalogue raisonné (more than 1,000 pages), a website of all the Bosch visual material (Boschproject.org, launching on 15 May) and a website of all historic documents relating to Bosch (boschdoc.huygens.knaw.nl). This meant that all the research project’s new high-resolution visual material had to be converted to reproducible size for the printer and designer. Having catalogue and monograph produced by the same publisher (Mercatorfonds, Brussels) and printer (Die Keure, Bruges) simplified the process.
Restoration work went on into 2015: waiting for high-quality digital images of the nine restored paintings in the exhibition was tense. The greatest pressure was to get the exhibition catalogue (in four languages) ready in time.
As the exhibition aimed for the most convincing presentation of Bosch’s authentic own work, we chose to describe and sumptuously illustrate only his and his studio’s work. But we added a complete list of all the exhibited objects at the end, and used the same narrative structure for the catalogue as the exhibition itself, to reflect a physical sense of the show.
Jos Koldeweij is an art historian at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, chair of the academic committee of the BRCP and joint curator of the exhibition Hieronymus Bosch – Visions of Genius, on until 8 May at Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, the Netherlands
It was necessary to start planning so far in advance because there wasn’t a single work of the world-famous artist in our city. Without these it would obviously be impossible to develop the exhibition.
So the interdisciplinary Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) began in 2010, directed by myself and Matthijs Ilsink: an initiative from the city of ’s-Hertogenbosch to document Bosch’s entire oeuvre in accordance with a strict protocol, using the most advanced investigative techniques. The BRCP also aimed to make restoration possible where necessary, on condition that the result of the research and restoration would be presented in Het Noordbrabants Museum using the original paintings.
The exhibition Hieronymus Bosch – Visions of Genius was organised by Charles de Mooij, the director of Het Noordbrabants Museum, helped by Ilsink and me. The BRCP’s investigative sessions and negotiations for the loan of artworks ended in 2015.
Meanwhile, production began on the 192-page exhibition catalogue, a new two-part Bosch monograph with catalogue raisonné (more than 1,000 pages), a website of all the Bosch visual material (Boschproject.org, launching on 15 May) and a website of all historic documents relating to Bosch (boschdoc.huygens.knaw.nl). This meant that all the research project’s new high-resolution visual material had to be converted to reproducible size for the printer and designer. Having catalogue and monograph produced by the same publisher (Mercatorfonds, Brussels) and printer (Die Keure, Bruges) simplified the process.
Restoration work went on into 2015: waiting for high-quality digital images of the nine restored paintings in the exhibition was tense. The greatest pressure was to get the exhibition catalogue (in four languages) ready in time.
As the exhibition aimed for the most convincing presentation of Bosch’s authentic own work, we chose to describe and sumptuously illustrate only his and his studio’s work. But we added a complete list of all the exhibited objects at the end, and used the same narrative structure for the catalogue as the exhibition itself, to reflect a physical sense of the show.
Jos Koldeweij is an art historian at Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen, chair of the academic committee of the BRCP and joint curator of the exhibition Hieronymus Bosch – Visions of Genius, on until 8 May at Het Noordbrabants Museum, Den Bosch, the Netherlands
