World culture: The International Exhibition “Hieronymus Bosch – Visions of Genius” opened in Netherlands

The International Exhibition “Hieronymus Bosch – Visions of Genius” opened 13 February at the Noordbrabants Museum in Den Bosch, where it will run until 8 May 2016. Hieronymus Bosch is viewed worldwide as the most intriguing and exciting Netherlandish artist of the late Middle Ages. The exhibition includes the lion’s share of his surviving paintings and drawings, and is based on the most comprehensive research ever performed into the artist’s oeuvre: the Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP). Never before have so many of Bosch’s works returned to his home town of ’s-Hertogenbosch, where he created them over 500 years ago.

The idea for the exhibition dates back to 2001. Having seen the Bosch exhibition in Rotterdam, the mayor of ’s-Hertogenbosch, Ton Rombouts, called for the city to honour its most famous son in 2016 – the 500th anniversary of his death – with a large-scale exhibition of his work at the Noordbrabants Museum. The mayor’s plan initially encountered a good deal of scepticism in ’s-Hertogenbosch: after all, the city had no works by Bosch to loan in return when negotiating with other museums.

In 2007, however, the Bosch expert and professor of art history at Nijmegen, Jos Koldeweij, and the director of the Noordbrabants Museum, Charles de Mooij, presented an original proposal to the City Council. The creation of a research and conservation initiative focusing on Hieronymus Bosch’s artistic legacy and based in ’s-Hertogenbosch might persuade other museums to join forces for an exhibition there in 2016. So it was that the Bosch Research and Conservation Project (BRCP) came to be established.

De Mooij began to visit the relevant museums in the United States and Europe in 2008, to invite them to collaborate on the research project. The Jheronimus Bosch 500 Foundation, Radboud University Nijmegen and the Noordbrabants Museum set up the Bosch Research and Conservation Project in 2009 to study and, where necessary, restore the surviving paintings and drawings of Hieronymus Bosch. An interdisciplinary research team headed by Jos Koldeweij and coordinator Matthijs Ilsink then began work in 2010. In the years that followed, virtually all Bosch’s paintings and drawings were examined intensively and systematically, using the most advanced equipment available and the latest techniques.